Dozens of people in Hong Kong yesterday were charged with taking part in a riot after a dispute between vendors and police on the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday blew up into territory’s worst violence since pro-democracy protests in 2014.
Sixty-four people have been arrested in connection with the Monday night violence that saw protesters hurl bricks at police and set fire to trash cans in Mong Kok, a working-class neighborhood. Thirty-seven were charged yesterday.
More than 130 people were wounded in the clashes.
Photo: AP
The violence has compounded a sense of unease since an “Occupy Central” pro-democracy movement in late 2014 that saw thousands of protesters block major roads, including in Mong Kok, to demand Chinese Communist Party leaders allow full democracy in the territory.
At least one of those charged, Edward Leung Tin-kei (梁天琦), belongs to a group called Hong Kong Indigenous, one of a cluster of outspoken groups calling for greater Hong Kong autonomy and even independence from China.
Leung has been planning to contest a by-election for the Hong Kong Legislative Council.
The head of the University of Hong Kong student union, Billy Fung (馮敬恩), said three of its students were also in court. Students from the university were at the forefront of the 2014 protests.
Thirty-eight people — 35 men and three women aged between 15 and 70 — were charged with participating in a “riot,” the police said in a statement.
The 15-year-old is due to appear in a juvenile court today.
The defendants, who appeared one after another, including one with a bandage on his head, were granted bail and ordered to stay away from areas where the clashes took place. The next hearing will be on April 7, following a request by prosecutors to allow authorities time to gather evidence.
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