Police in Hong Kong yesterday used tear gas to clear pro-democracy demonstrators who had taken over a street and brought out water cannon trucks for the first time in the summer-long protests.
The skirmish on a main drag in the Tsuen Wan district in the New Territories followed a march that ended in a nearby park.
While a large crowd rallied in the park, a group of protesters took over a main street, strewing bamboo poles on the pavement and lining up orange and white traffic barriers and cones to obstruct police.
Photo: EPA-EFE
After hoisting warning flags, police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd. Protesters responded by throwing bricks and gasoline bombs toward the police.
The result was a surreal scene of small fires and scattered paving bricks on the street between the two sides, before the protesters abandoned their position.
Two water cannon trucks and a phalanx of police vehicles with flashing lights joined riot police on foot as they advanced up the street. They met little resistance.
Photo: AP
Television footage showed a water cannon being fired once, but perhaps more as a test, as it did not appear to reach the protesters.
Later in the evening, a Hong Kong police officer fired at least one gunshot in Tsuen Wan, the first time a live round has been used during three months of protests.
“According to my understanding, just now a gunshot was fired by a colleague... My initial understanding was that it was a uniformed policeman who fired his gun,” a Hong Kong police officer said.
Prior to the skirmishes, tens of thousands of umbrella-carrying protesters marched in the rain.
Many filled Tsuen Wan Park, the endpoint of the rally, chanting, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” the South China Morning Post reported.
The march in the New Territories started near the Kwai Fong train station, which has become a focal point for protesters after police used tear gas there earlier this month. Police with riot gear could be seen moving into position along the march route.
Police yesterday said they arrested 29 people on Saturday for various offenses, including unlawful assembly, possession of offensive weapons and assaulting police officers, after a large group of protesters clashed with police after a march in the Kowloon Bay neighborhood, building barricades and setting fires in the streets.
Ten people were left in hospital after Saturday’s clashes — two in a serious condition — staff said, without detailing if they were police or protesters.
Meanwhile, the territory’s metro system, the MTR, is the latest business to face public censure, after appearing to bend to Chinese state-media attacks accusing the system of being an “exclusive” service to ferry protesters to rallies.
The MTR yesterday shut stations near the main demonstration area in Tsuen Wan, in the second day of station closures in a row.
A second rally of a few hundred, some of them family members of police, yesterday criticized the government for leaving officers to handle the brunt of the crisis, while also calling for an independent investigation into the police handling of the protests.
“I believe within these two months, police have got enough opprobrium,” said a woman who asked not to be named and said she was a police officer’s wife.
“I really want you to know even if the whole world spits on you, we as family members will not. Remember, your job is to serve Hong Kong residents, not be the enemies of Hong Kong,” she said.
Additional reporting by AFP
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS