Rush hour commuters faced chaotic conditions and severe delays across Hong Kong Tuesday morning as anti-government protesters attempted to enforce a strike for the second day. Unrest also broke out at three universities and many international schools closed for the day.
Local media reported that protesters had thrown objects and at least one petrol bomb onto train lines, forcing passengers to disembark and walk along the tracks. Barricades were also set up on major thoroughfares. Protesters hurled rocks at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Tense standoffs took place at several stations, between frustrated commuters and squads of riot police conducting random bag searches and ID checks. Many stations pulled down the shutters.
Police reportedly entered the Polytechnic University campus, arresting one person and allegedly beating a student leader, while clashes broke out at City University and the Chinese University. The office of City University’s president was ransacked. Barricades were also set up on the road outside the enclave’s oldest seat of tertiary learning, Hong Kong University.
Tuesday’s disturbances come after a day of territory-wide violence that saw two people hospitalized in critical condition—one a protester shot by police, the other a man set on fire after a dispute with a group of youths. Scores of others were injured in clashes on university campuses and in several districts, including Hong Kong’s financial quarter, where office workers on their lunch hour were forced to run from volleys of tear gas.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement Monday saying: “The United States is watching the situation in Hong Kong with grave concern. We condemn violence on all sides, extend our sympathies to victims of violence regardless of their political inclinations, and call for all parties—police and protestors—to exercise restraint.”
The department added: “The increased polarization within Hong Kong society underscores the need for a broad-based and sincere dialogue between the government, protestors, and citizenry writ large.”
However, efforts by Hong Kong’s embattled leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, to hold Town Hall-stye dialogues with the public stalled after she was lambasted at the first such event in September. The political climate has deteriorated sharply since.
During a press conference yesterday, Lam refused to give ground so long as the protests remained violent.
“If there is still any wishful thinking that by escalating violence the [government] will yield to pressure to satisfy so-called political demands, I am making this statement clear and loud here: that will not happen,” she said.
Hong Kong’s anti-government unrest is now in its fifth month. Sparked by a now withdrawn extradition bill, the protests have since broadened into a radical push for greater political freedom. Many protesters also demand more autonomy from Beijing, or even secession from China, which resumed sovereignty over the former British colony in 1997.
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TIME Staff
November 11, 2019 at 05:09PM
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