May Day protesters clashed with riot police in Macau as a rally against labor shortages turned violent yesterday.
Police fired blank rounds into the air and used dogs to disperse a crowd of around 1,000 protesters after they broke through cordons lining the route of the march.
Cheered by onlookers, they marched towards government offices only to be penned back at a fish market. A tense standoff then began, with protesters surrounding one police vehicle and throwing missiles, including water bottles and placards, at officers who had reinforced their lines with watercannons.
Witnesses said they saw several protesters being dragged from the crowd by their hair by baton-wielding police while another man was seen staggering away clutching a wound to his face.
There were reports from some, however, that police had fired live rounds.
"I know what a starter pistol sounds like and they were not firing blanks," lawmaker Jose Pereira Coutinho said.
Political protests are rare in Macau. Unlike Hong Kong, the former Portugese colony has a history of cooperation with China.
The protest started peacefully with demonstrators calling on the government to implement laws to reduce the number of illegal workers flooding into Macau to cash in on a recent casino-led economic boom.
But the mood soured when they stopped outside a mortuary where preparations were underway for the funeral of a brother of Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho (何厚鏵). They began chanting "Edmund Ho step down," and scuffles broke out as police tried to move the crowd along.
Coutinho said the protest, which gathered labor unions and civil service organizations, had been dominated by the police.
The protesters called on the government to give workers more fruits of the city's booming economy.
"The government is rich, the casinos are rich but nobody is looking out for the Macau people," said one marcher, construction worker Lee Kin-yan.
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