Hong Kong protests: The flashpoints in a year of anger

Hong Kongers have been remembering key occasions from the months of anti-government protests that overwhelmed the town final year as democracy activists accuse authorities of making an attempt to re-write historical past.

On Monday some residents tried to go away bouquets of white flowers exterior a metro station to mark the anniversary of a controversial night time of the motion, however they had been rapidly eliminated by authorities.

Final week there was an outcry when an opposition lawmaker was arrested and accused of “rioting” in one other key incident in July 2019 the place mob violence had left him wounded and hospitalised.

As arrests hold mounting over the 2019 demonstrations, we glance again at some of the defining moments of the pro-democracy motion.

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12 June 2019: The first tear gasoline and rubber bullets

The protests started as peaceable demonstrations in opposition to plans to permit extraditions to mainland China. On 9 June an estimated a million folks rallied on the streets in a signal of the rising and huge opposition to the proposed invoice.

However the authorities was unwilling to have interaction with protesters and three days later the temper shifted. When a small group of largely younger protesters hurled bricks, water bottles and umbrellas at police throughout one tense confrontation, the ferocity of the officers’ response shook Hong Kong.

Police fired volleys of tear gasoline and rubber bullets, used for the primary time in many years, into the gang. In chaotic scenes screaming protesters ran to flee a closed-off highway, eyewitnesses say they narrowly prevented a stampede. Movies confirmed unarmed protesters who posed no menace to the police being crushed by closely armoured officers. And in putting interventions, peculiar residents had been seen asking police to not hurt the youth.

“It was an vital turning level for the motion,” mentioned Leung Kai Chi, a lecturer in Chinese language research on the Chinese language College of Hong Kong. “There was a sense that justice must be served and police should be held to account.”

The subsequent day Hong Kong’s police chief defended his officers. He mentioned they’d been “restrained” and used an acceptable quantity of power.

1 July 2019: The storming of parliament

In a single of essentially the most brazen and symbolic acts of the protests so far, a group of activists smashed by way of Hong Kong’s parliament after an hours-long siege.

Tons of of individuals who broke away from a mass rally in opposition to the 22nd anniversary of the town’s return to China from Britain stormed into the Legislative Council.

As soon as inside, the protesters spray-painted defiant messages on the partitions, tore down portraits of metropolis leaders and unfurled a colonial-era flag in a clear political assertion to leaders in Hong Kong and Beijing.

Holmes Chan, now a freelance journalist, was reporting on the scene that night time for Hong Kong Free Press. He mentioned that though there was “a lot of agonising and soul-searching” amongst protesters on whether or not to enter, there was “a sense of unity” as they used the debating chamber to articulate their 5 core calls for together with common suffrage.

At the present time is considered by many as remodeling a protest in opposition to an extradition invoice into a a lot wider motion for higher democracy.

As scenes of the storming had been beamed world wide, the Hong Kong authorities was swift to denounce the act as vandalism, Beijing referred to as it “completely insupportable”.

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What was stunning, says Mr Chan, is how the normally law-abiding Hong Kong public broadly sympathised with protesters determined to have their voices heard. “It was a crucial second that galvanised the entire motion,” he mentioned.

Dr Leung remembers watching the occasions unfold on a stay broadcast. There have been 4 protesters who did not need to go away earlier than police ultimately stormed in at round midnight. The others got here again for them, saying “‘we get in collectively, we get out collectively. That second was very touching”, he mentioned.

21 July 2019: White shirted ‘triads’ assault public in practice station

The 721 incident, because it’s recognized in Hong Kong, is seen as one of essentially the most defining moments of final year’s protests.

On this night time a mob of masked males at Yuen Lengthy subway station, largely carrying white and brandishing metallic rods, attacked protesters returning dwelling from a peaceable rally.

The violence, which left dozens of protesters and bystanders injured, marked a essential turning level in what number of of the general public considered the police, who had been late to reach on the scene.

On the time police mentioned they had been entangled in different rallies, as protesters accused them of failing to supply safety in opposition to attackers suspected to be triad gangsters.

However in a new growth final week the police defended its response after arresting a distinguished opposition lawmaker. Lam Cheuk-ting was accused of “rioting” in an incident that noticed him attacked and hospitalised. Talking at a information convention, a superintendent claimed occasions that night time came about between “evenly matched” rival teams.

• HK police accused of ‘re-writing historical past’ of assault
• Have been triads concerned in the Yuen Lengthy assault?

The police response has enraged activists who now accuse officers of re-writing historical past and altering the narrative of an occasion that was filmed on cell phones and shared broadly on social media.

It won’t be attainable for authorities “to distort the info of the 721 incident” except they shut down Fb and YouTube, wrote Gwyneth Kwai-lam Ho, a then journalist who was injured whereas live-streaming the assaults.

31 August 2019: The 831 incident

On the finish of August recent violence erupted in a Hong Kong metro station. This time riot police stormed a practice at Prince Edward subway, putting terrified passengers with batons and dispersing pepper spray.

Eyewitnesses mentioned police focused suspected democracy protesters clad in black however different passengers too had been swept up in one of essentially the most controversial nights of the protests.

“My head would not cease bleeding,” Joseph, a highschool pupil on his method dwelling from a rally, advised AFP in June of the incident final year that noticed him launch a civil go well with in opposition to the police for a wound inflicted by their batons.

The police have rejected allegations of police brutality, saying officers deployed acceptable power.

However the occasions of that night time stay seared in the minds of many Hong Kongers with ongoing tributes to these injured by way of paintings and flowers left exterior the station.

17 November 2019: The college siege

By mid-November college campuses had became fiery battlegrounds in some of essentially the most dramatic scenes of the motion.

Laurel Chor, a freelance photojournalist, remembers the “post-apocalyptic really feel” at Hong Kong Polytechnic College in a practically two-week siege that started on 17 November.

Intense battles broke out between protesters and the police after the latter sealed off the campus. The air was thick with smoke as officers deployed tear gasoline and rubber bullets. Protesters fought again with catapults, Molotov cocktails and bows and arrows.

Police mentioned they had been conducting a dispersal and arrest operation, accusing these inside of rioting, a cost that may imply as much as 10 years in jail.

Dozens staged daring escapes. “We noticed children making an attempt to flee by crawling by way of the sewage tunnels, protesters propelling from a bridge right down to a freeway the place motorbikes had been ready for them,” says Ms Chor, one of a number of journalists camped contained in the campus alongside protesters to doc the siege.

Finally greater than 1,000 mostly-young activists had been arrested, as they tried to flee or surrendered. After they left the campus in ambulances, some wrapped in emergency blankets, Ms Chor says it introduced dwelling simply how younger some of the protesters had been, their mother and father ready exterior after pleading with police to maintain them secure.

“It type of revealed how this narrative of these clashes between equal events is simply not true,” she mentioned.

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