
Protesters in Hong Kong are getting attacked by masked thugs - yasp
https://twitter.com/gissisim/status/1152975855334887424
======
potatofarmer45
The Chinese and HK government's have realized they've lost the culture wars
and public opinion so they've resorted to the tried and tested handibook of
authoritarian governments, to create a cycle of violence to create
justification for cracking down.

This is a provocation. Protesters will now counter arm themselves with similar
bats and sticks, which in turn will give the police extra justification when
they uncover "weapons". It will be used by the Chinese domestic media as
justification to crack down hard.

------
NotSammyHagar
I despair for the protesters hope to have self determination. How can we help
the people who just want to be free? China will just keep increasing the
pressure, trying to get an excuse for sending out the police and arresting or
beating them all up.

------
throwaway_2047
Police turn blind eye on thug's assault
[https://streamable.com/wlfoq](https://streamable.com/wlfoq)

~~~
throwaway_2047
CONFIRMED: Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho shook hands with suspected
gangsters, who very likely are the same batch of people attacking passengers
in Yuen Long Station few hours ago.

[https://www.facebook.com/hkcolumn/](https://www.facebook.com/hkcolumn/)

~~~
ktln2
Hong Kong Police Commander Coordinating With Suspected Attackers:
[https://streamable.com/7wt53](https://streamable.com/7wt53)

------
ulfw
I love Hong Kong. I love Hong Kongers and spent wonderful three years there.
Am now leaving though (for many reasons, career and this). Not sure where off
to next.

Singapore again? Australia? Don't know. Depends on opportunities. If anyone
needs a good product guy, let me know

Unfortunately Hong Kong has never been competitive in tech offerings and
quality of life has been going down dramatically over recent years.

~~~
singularity2001
How did quality of life go down?

~~~
theredbox
Extreme real estate prices?

------
yasp
More
[https://twitter.com/alanwongw/status/1152962222357807104](https://twitter.com/alanwongw/status/1152962222357807104)

~~~
throwaway_2047
Journalists were hit by thugs
[https://thestandnews.com/politics/%E5%85%83%E6%9C%97%E6%83%A...](https://thestandnews.com/politics/%E5%85%83%E6%9C%97%E6%83%A1%E7%85%9E%E8%A1%8C%E5%85%87-%E7%BE%A4%E6%AF%86%E8%A8%98%E8%80%85%E5%B8%82%E6%B0%91-%E9%A0%AD%E7%A0%B4%E8%A1%80%E6%B5%81-%E8%A8%98%E5%8D%94%E7%B7%8A%E6%80%A5%E5%91%BC%E7%B1%B2%E8%AD%A6%E6%96%B9%E5%B1%A5%E8%A1%8C%E8%81%B7%E8%B2%AC/)

------
pcurve
Assuming the gangsters are backed by pro mainland leaders, what are hoping to
get out of this?

~~~
yasp
Suppression of dissent. What else?

~~~
pcurve
If the general public is apathetic and and number of dissenter is in minority
I get it. The only thing I can think of is, they are pitting against one
another in hope to cause greater chaos.

------
hker
(Based on a comment I made on another thread)

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] [8], 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-b657-1..).

[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_leavi..).

[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/paco.chor/videos/10157511842948537/](https://www.facebook.com/paco.chor/videos/10157511842948537/)

[8]:
[https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=316880969036144](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=316880969036144)

------
S_A_P
Sounds like Antifa, or the right wing equivalent. Before the swarm of
downvotes, everyone think about what happens when we decide to use violence to
impose their point of view. The government should be our client, not our
ruler. We should be able to protest and be heard without fear.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
dondawest
You are always SO quick to shut down discussion but the guy you’re replying to
is not flaming anyone and he is making really interesting points

~~~
dang
The issue isn't that the commenter was flaming a particular person but that
the comment was going into a generic ideological tangent. That's a classic
flamewar zone and off topic here. I'm sorry to tell you that it's off topic
since you find it interesting, but we don't have much choice but to build
firewalls around HN. Highly-charged political topics would take over very
quickly otherwise; they are more impassioned and inflammatory (and important,
arguably) than anything else that gets discussed here.

By the way, I'm sorry that I didn't have a chance to respond to you in earlier
threads. I saw your comments and would normally have been happy to answer, but
ran out of time.

~~~
dondawest
Okay, good points. I see it your way now. Thanks for the response. I
appreciate you dude.

