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Hong Kong police say protesters out of control

17 Comments
By PATRICK QUINN and KEN MORITSUGU

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17 Comments
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Just in the past 3 days

and yet, the government and poluce under Lam has had 5 months to de-escalate, but chose to escalate each time.

You'd think somewhere, someone knows the basics of keeping law and order, ie first de-escalate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-escalation

3 ( +8 / -5 )

Mainland China is devoid of the basic human rights which the Hong Kong people have grown up under.

The ability to criticise and to hold rulers accountable is absent in China.

The people of Hong Kong know precisely what will happen to them if they do not fight for their freedom.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

The police are the ones out of control.

-- They are the ones that are given authority and weapons by the state.

-- They have the authority to use force.

-- They are supposed to trained on showing restraint and deploying force only when necessary and, even then, in a measured and restrained manner.

I have seen videos out of HK from the last 18 hours. Showing police completely out of control.

-- A video of riot police herding a few frightened, unarmed residents into a lift in a housing estate, beating them with metal batons, pulling a gun on them, and then threatening a journalist with arrest if he didn't stop filming them.

-- A fire department crew was busy putting out a fire in the road in Causeway Bay, with nary a protestor in sight and the police just decide to launch tear gas at them.

-- Some ordinary guy was walking down Queen's Road in Central minding his own business when an undercover cop runs over and drop kicks him Bruce Lee style, tackles him to the ground, and then is joined by another undercover cop to arrest him. With riot police trying to push people away and stop filming.

I'm sorry, but it is abundantly clear that the police have been given the freedom to do whatever they wish. They can now act as jackboot thugs with impunity.

Perhaps some of the protestors are hooligans. But they are private citizens. What we are witnessing now are thugs dress in police uniforms, with the shield of the badge to protect them from prosecution for their thuggery.

It has all the hallmarks of a police state.

In other words, it is just like mainland China.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

While I support the protesters, a lot of them are way out of control and they’re justifying Beijing to roll in and squash it and take HK and all their efforts would have been for nothing.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

They are fed up. Fed up with being ignored by the government for months, not even wiling to open a discussion nor acknowledging the issue. Fed with the police arresting everyone outside of the law, entering private properties to beat up citizens without warrant, throwing tear gaz to residential area, shooting non threatening people. Fed up with the lack of accountability.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Apathetic and complacent Americans should take note of the actions of the citizens of a city-state who harbor “a widespread sentiment that the territory’s government does not work for its people and exists to advance an agenda set by Beijing.”

There's a lesson or two to be learned.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Hong Kong police say protesters out of control

Pot calling kettle

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Mainland police come in dressed as protestors start violence and then we get to hear people here support the government when push-back happens from actual protestors who watched their compatriots get their teeth knocked out.

Police run around with weapons and don't know who they are beating or firing tear gas at and seem more intent to either punish the populace or rile them up than try to keep the peace. The police are being very unprofessional....unless their job is to be professional thugs and agents provacateurs.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Marshall Saints:

Mainland police come in dressed as protestors start violence

There is a couple of videos showing exactly this. I strongly suspect that these are not isolated incidences but a big planned operation.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Hong Kong police say protesters out of control

Hmm . . . How many police officers have been shot by protesters? And how many protesters have been shot by Hong Kong police officers?

Isn't it the other way around?

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Whether you believe that the protesters are violent hooligans seeking to empower themselves by taking advantage of China asking Hong Kong's government to put in place a legal process where those who commit murder in China and then hide from justice in Hong Kong could be returned to face justice, or people who put up with a foreign chosen government for 99 years suddenly wanting to choose their own independent government, is up to you.

But aren't you a little concerned how protests against governments that the US doesn't approve of (China, or Bolivia (Morales), or Iran, or the Ukraine (Yanukovych)) are reported so radically differently than protests against governments that the US does approve of (France, Bolivia (Anex) the Ukraine (Zelensky) or Israel)

Even more concerning is how high the level of 'righteous anger' over any measure to police and control the first sort of protest is, versus the high level of approval for the use of violence and arrests and intimidation used to suppress the second sort of protest.

If those AREN'T something that concerns you, Orwell might as well not have written 1984.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Whether you believe that the protesters are violent hooligans seeking to empower themselves by taking advantage of China asking Hong Kong's government to put in place a legal process where those who commit murder in China and then hide from justice in Hong Kong could be returned to face justice, or people who put up with a foreign chosen government for 99 years suddenly wanting to choose their own independent government, is up to you.

Meh, you manufactured this ^^^ entire narrative up so you can lecture and stand on some kind of moral high ground.

The protesters did not setout to empower themselves. They, along with millions others who march in the streets were in fear of 'the bill'. The bill that could see them whipped off to China for thinking independently. The Basic Law enshrines this right for them until 2047!

Lam sought to stampede over the marchers by escalating and firing tear gas and water cannon at the marchers. So the elder, women, children, and those with a tenuous job stopped. Emboldened by this, she escalated again to the use of paramilitaries and thugs. More stayed at home. Emboldened by more staying at home, she started spraying bullets....can you see the picture now?

This situation in HK, is not about violence and who's right or wrong, they are all wrong. Lam made sure both sides are wrong, but as long as this ultimately achieves China's goal of suppressing speech and thoughts independent of the Chinese Communist Party, she will continue on this path.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/why-is-china-detaining-more-foreigners/

"...it seems clear that the detention of professors and other foreigners in China is part of the country’s clampdown on speech and thought"

It is part of a wider pattern in general to suppress! If you want to see the violence in isolation, then you're not seeing the whole picture. The picture that millions HKers saw when they first marched.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

China can't really exterminate all of them like they did in '89. One of the blessings of smart phones and social media.

This will probably end up being a slow and methodical re-education for the young Hong Kongers.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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