Hong Kong Protests: Spreading Clashes Paralyze City

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

Riot police officers fired many volleys of tear gas at protesters near government offices, apartment complexes, shopping malls and parks across Hong Kong on Monday, as clashes with demonstrators plunged a broad stretch of the territory into chaos.

Antigovernment demonstrators fanned out across at least a half-dozen districts, occupying roads and hurling objects at police stations as they tested the limits of the police force. They set a fire outside a police station in Sha Tin, in the New Territories region of northern Hong Kong, that quickly swelled until flames licked the sides of the building. Firefighters extinguished the blaze.

Activists called for a general strike and rallies on Monday, leading to service disruptions on several subway and rail lines and the cancellation of more than 200 flights from the city’s airport.

The officers arrested dozens of people, pinning some to the ground, and fired multiple rounds of tear gas, filling the air with white, acrid fumes. Local news outlets said that the riot officers also shot off rubber bullets.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/world/asia/hong-kong-protest.html

[Igel]

1. It won't end well.

Gandhi against Hitler would have yielded a different result than Gandhi against Britain.


I have to wonder to what extent this is being billed in state media as a foreign plot, similar to the way that Putin bills any suggestion of a color revolution in his backyard as due to US/CIA/NATO subversion. (Xenophobia--blaming another country or outsiders for all your political and economic problems--is a standard rhetorical technique, right?)