
Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets at Protestors - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-21/thousands-set-to-turn-out-for-anti-government-march-in-hong-kong
======
bodymove
Actually it is really bad right now,
[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/just-chaos-
bloodshed-h...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/22/just-chaos-bloodshed-
hong-kong-district-hundreds-masked-men-assault-protesters-journalists-
residents/)

Chaos and bloodshed in Hong Kong district as hundreds of masked men assault
protesters, journalists, residents

The group used bamboo sticks and other weapons to attack people in the area
and in the West Rail Line station, injuring Democratic Party lawmaker Lam
Cheuk-ting, who was seen bleeding from his mouth in a social media live
stream.

~~~
hker
For more photos and videos of the triad attack, check out
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/)

For another reporting of the triad attack, see BBC [1] and the Times [2].

It was leaked a few days ago that the government was planning to use triads to
do the dirty work (See point 4 in [3] and [4] in Chinese). Using triads
happened during the 2014 umbrella protest, but this time the attack on
arbitrary citizens (not necessarily the protesters) is on a completely
different scale: a terrorist attack.

And there are videos showing that the police “co-operated” with the triads (by
turning a blind eye: arriving at the scene late [5] [6], chatting with the
triad attackers [7], closing the police stations and not responding to cases
during the events).

[1]: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-49066982](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49066982)

[2]:
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2c35b094-abe5-11e9-b657-1...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2c35b094-abe5-11e9-b657-11944f524f2a)

[3]:
[https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/posts/2336638383089638](https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/posts/2336638383089638)

[4]:
[https://nextplus.nextmedia.com/article/2_682569_0](https://nextplus.nextmedia.com/article/2_682569_0)

[5]: A video showing two policemen turning their back on the the subway
station right before the attack:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0hm2/hkpf_leavi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0hm2/hkpf_leaving_yuen_long_station_at_the_time_that/)

[6]: A video allegedly showed how the triad members (on the left) left the
scene when the police (on the right) arrived at one scene:
[https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/videos/477470036387268/](https://www.facebook.com/ChanKamShui/videos/477470036387268/)

[7]:
[https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=316880969036144](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=316880969036144)

~~~
taobility
Funny, why you don't show the videos how those violent protesters beaten
polices, cut some police's finger, destroy the government buildings, dirty
Chinese national emblem?

------
southerntofu
We know from first-hand experience here in France that although it is not
visually spectacular, tear gas and rubber bullets are highly dangerous and
potentially lethal weapons.

There's the more famous cases like that yellow vests self-proclaimed (and
wrongly so) spokesperson who lost an eye to a rubber bullet. There's the old
Zineb Redouane who was at home in Marseille when she was hit in the head by a
tar gas can (thrown from a launcher, not by hand) and died accordingly.

But then, there's also the THOUSANDS of daily anonymous victims of state
repression. Because those weapons, along with "sting-ball grenades", get
deployed in day-to-day police operations (controlling popular neighborhoods,
football matches, free parties).

In such hard times, all my thoughts go to the comrades in Hong Kong and their
close ones who are going to face very hard times. Solidarity is stronger than
any prison!

~~~
inferiorhuman
_We know from first-hand experience here in France that although it is not
visually spectacular, tear gas and rubber bullets are highly dangerous and
potentially lethal weapons._

We know that from the United States too when Oakland police shot rubber
bullets at protestors' heads. Per the manufacturer you're supposed to bounce
them off the ground at someone, not shoot them directly at someone's head.

~~~
centralsan
Did you and the OP actually watch some of the videos posted in this thread?
There are literally gangsters sponsored by the government using weapons to
attack women and children in broad daylight, while the police is nowhere to be
seen, and tells people to not be outside.

There is NO comparison to anything in a civilized western society

~~~
inferiorhuman
_There is NO comparison to anything in a civilized western society_

I'm not well versed in French police history, but there are plenty of examples
of government brutality in the United States. This isn't whataboutism as,
quite frankly, none of the violence justifies any of the other violence and
what China is doing is an atrocious violation of basic human rights.

Off the top of my head:

Kent State — killing university students

MOVE bombing - bombing a residential neighborhood in Philly

Iran Contra Affair - CIA allegedly funded drug traffickers allegedly playing a
large role in unleashing crack cocaine into American inner cities (wanna talk
about violence against youth…)

1968 Democratic National Convention

Dakota Access Pipeline protests - protestors were tear gassed and sprayed with
water in freezing temperatures

And of course Trump's concentration camps.

If your argument hinges on the government looking the other way while a
private party perpetrates violence I'd start looking at the Homestead Strike,
the Ford Massacre, any small town in the south where the KKK + police
department venn diagram was basically just a single circle, and of course
Blackwater's (of Betsy Devoss fame) Nisour Square Massacre.

~~~
awakeasleep
None of those are really the same- the closest thing I'm aware of in US
history is the Pinkertons- except they were presumably professionals- in HK
we're seeing illegal gangs being hired to terrorize the populace

~~~
inferiorhuman
_None of those are really the same- the closest thing I 'm aware of in US
history is the Pinkertons- except they were presumably professionals- in HK
we're seeing illegal gangs being hired to terrorize the populace _

What is happening in Hong Kong is, presumably, the government using outside
groups as a proxy for violence. I've outlined a number of instances of the
American government using disproportionate violence and using outside groups
to perpetrate disproportionate violence. The one thing I forgot were the
allegations that the FBI used Gregory Scarpa (a mob hitman) to extract
information might seem closer for you.

If you look to the south, there are plenty of instances of the American
government funding South American rebel groups (while not the mob, they were
not professionals, and did perpetrate plenty of heinous crimes). I mentioned
the Contras in the context of the CIA funding drug trafficking into the US (if
you don't believe that resulted in an explosion of violence go check out the
homicide stats for LA County in the 1990s), but the Contras were
extraordinarily violent in their home of Nicaragua.

Of course nothing is ever _exactly_ the same. I don't think that making a
difference between professional and hobbyist thug is one worth making here.
Beyond that I don't think that legal vs illegal is a worth making either. Do
you think the PRC is going to sanction the triads (therefor declaring their
behavior illegal)? I don't.

~~~
awakeasleep
The point I was referring to was that this is a domestic incident of proxy
violence.

The Scarpa and Crack episodes were closer to that, but it still doesn't seem
like the Pinkertons were the closest we came to this in the USA

------
thesausageking
What's scarier is the organized attacks by white shirt Triads on normal
people. It looks like it was coordinated with the police who went into the
police station and shut the doors shortly before the attack. See the video and
comments on this thread:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0diu/triads_att...](https://old.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cg0diu/triads_attacking_civilians_anyone_on_the_mtr_in/)

------
bhouston
I worry about Hong Kong protestors as it isn't like mainland China isn't in
this for the long game. Mainland China will increasing integrate Hong Kong, it
is an unstoppable force. I think the most prominent protestors should have
plans to get out of the country.

~~~
Nasrudith
I think part of their goal is to make the intergration as expensive as
possible. They don't need to beat the Mainland in a classical sense - just
make it not worth it even when trying to preserve face.

The ideal goal is either turning Mainland to be more like their values or
being cut loose into a "offically a part of China that we don't deliver mail
to" like Taiwan. The Mainland could always go Tiananmen Square part 2 but it
would do more damage to their relations, create martyrs, and lead to sanctions
and boycotts value.

~~~
twblalock
There does not seem to be a unified long-term goal among the protesters.

Support for independence is strong primarily among young people, so embracing
the cause of independence would probably split the protest movement along
generational lines. However, everybody knows that Hong Kong's special deal
with mainland will expire after 2046 and it doesn't seem like anyone outside
the independence movement really has a strategy to preserve democracy after
that.

~~~
pimmen
> There does not seem to be a unified long-term goal among the protesters.

Universal sufferage has been trending as another talking point too among
protesters. This would be very long term because if Hong Kong would allot all
seats in the LegCo based on popular vote Beijing would almost certainly lose
its ability to legislate this easily and hand pick the government.

~~~
twblalock
How would universal suffrage last beyond 2046, at which time the mainland
government can just rewrite all of the laws?

~~~
pimmen
Because China, contrary to popular opinion, cares about its image. Dismantling
democracy in one sweep at 2046 would look pretty bad, replacing the
democratically elected government at 2046 would also look bad.

------
hackeraccount
I originally compared Hong Kong to my understanding of the cities in the
middle ages. London and it's citizens were granted special privileges.

I thought this was a sort of recapitulation of that. That still might be the
case but I'm also starting to think this might be bad for the mainland Chinese
government. They are fighting ideas about autonomy. The people in Hong Kong
don't just want to sit back and make money - they want a say in how the world
is run. They want power. That's the idea that's being fought against.

If it's China vs. Hong Kong then my money is on China. But what if that
alienation between governed and government spreads from Hong Kong to other
places in China? It seems unlikely but can the Chinese government respond to
that?

There's that classic Churchill quote about Democracy (The worst but for all
the others) and - if what I've described is accurate - this is one of the
places Democracy shines because it's agile enough to concede power as a way of
avoiding chaos. More autocratic systems tend to be a lot firmer - they concede
nothing by their nature but the prices of firmness is brittleness. If they are
finally forced to concede it comes in the form of shattering.

------
SubiculumCode
Is there wide-spread support of the protesters among the HongKong general
public? Have their been polls conducted? I support Democracy and the HongKong
protesters, but I wonder whether the police actions reflect the broader
public's consensus or not....[edit]I say this because it is hard for me to
imagine the public NOT supporting the protestors, which would make the police
actions against the protestors that much more a sign of impending oppression
and influence of the Chinese government...

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Of the 7.4 million people who live in Hong Kong, between 338,000 (police
count) and 2 million (organizer count) people took to the streets on June 16th
alone. Here's a timelapse of one evening of protests (I couldn't find a
palatable source so I rehosted it myself):

[https://yukari.sr.ht/hk-timelapse.mp4](https://yukari.sr.ht/hk-timelapse.mp4)

~~~
microcolonel
Those clips make my every hair stand. It is a movement of unquestionable
legitimacy.

P.S. watching on Sway, thank you Drew.

