Protesters hold up the grille of an exit of the Causeway Bay MTR underground metro station after it was closed by station staff in Hong Kong on Sunday. ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP
Pro-democracy protesters on Sunday pushed Hong Kong through its 15th consecutive weekend of disturbances that began over an extradition bill in June, even though the bill was officially withdrawn by the government two weeks ago.
At least eight people were injured, with one sent to hospital in critical condition, after protesters engaged in brawls in several locations, according to a source at Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority.
On Sunday afternoon, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters in Hong Kong defied a police ban and marched from the city’s major Causeway Bay shopping district to Central, the business hub.
People hurled bricks and petrol bombs at the police and into the government headquarters. The nearby Legislative Council issued a rare red alert, which means everyone must leave the complex immediately.
The police fired tear gas and deployed a water cannon to disperse the crowd. They warned the protestors to stop breaking the law and to leave the scene.
Protesters also smashed facilities at two major metro stations – Admiralty and Wan Chai-on Hong Kong Island and set fires at Wan Chai and on nearby roads. The city’s railway operator, MTR, shut down the two stations and the nearby Causeway Bay station over public safety concerns.
Along the procession route, shops and shopping malls closed much earlier than usual business hours. Tram services from Central to North Point were also suspended.
The vandalism came as a top MTR official told the public on Sunday that the repair cost for the damaged metro stations over the past few weeks totaled $1.3 million.
Jacob Kam Chak-pui, chief executive officer of MTR Corp, said on a television talk show that the repeated vandalism to more than 90 metro stations has made it more difficult to complete repairs. The acute shortage of spare parts for
repairs was one of the main problems, Kam said.
Sometimes, parts were removed from one intact station and used to repair another station that was seriously damaged, he said.
On the same day, a group of anti-government protesters marched to the British consulate in Hong Kong, petitioning for action supporting their actions. They sang God Save the Queen and waved the Union Jack, along with the city’s flag that was used during the colonial period.
A week ago, protesters gathered near the US consulate to urge its Congress to step in.
Beijing denounced the acts, saying it was evidence of Western powers meddling in domestic affairs.
“These small groups of protesters volunteered to be pawns of Western countries in a confrontation between China and the US,” said Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The protesters urged Western countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong, hoping to shock the city’s economy, Lau said, adding that they were attempting to force China to yield to economic pressure and compromise.
At the same time, he said, the protesters believed that the central government would be infuriated and take a tougher stance toward Hong Kong, which would invite more Western intervention.
Those who displayed colonial flags had either not lived through the colonial era or only experienced the brief period when the British government undertook softer governance in Hong Kong before the region was returned to the motherland, Lau said.
“Their lack of understanding the reality has glorified colonisation,” he said.
At the same time, nostalgia for the colonial period was also designed to humiliate the central government and disgrace the “one country, two systems” policy, he said.
CHINA DAILY/ANN
