HONG KONG — The police in Hong Kong fired tear gas and protesters lit fires in a bank branch and subway entrances on Sunday, as tens of thousands of people marched despite an official ban and attacks on the march promoters.
The demonstration, which began peacefully before outbursts of vandalism and clashes between the police and protesters, was a display of continuing support for the movement despite increasing restrictions and official condemnation.
Demonstrators gathered in Tsim Sha Tsui, a crowded commercial district on the southern tip of the Kowloon Peninsula, to march to West Kowloon, site of an arts district and a high-speed rail station that links the city to mainland China.
They assembled along a promenade beside Victoria Harbor and chanted slogans while the protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong” was played.
The Hong Kong subway system, which has sustained widespread vandalism from protesters in recent weeks, closed stations near the march route.
Protesters broke windows in multiple stations on Sunday and painted graffiti over the protective barriers installed around the entryways. They also set fire to an entrance to the Mong Kok subway station and a Bank of China branch.
Around 3:15 p.m., the police fired tear gas at protesters near the Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station. Shortly after that, some protesters threw several firebombs into the station, briefly setting a tree alight.
The Civil Human Rights Front, the organizer of large, peaceful marches this summer they estimate were attended by up to two million people, applied to host the event Sunday. But the police rejected the application, saying that such demonstrations have often been hijacked by vandalism and violence.
After that denial, the Civil Human Rights Front backed out of hosting the march, but one of its leaders, Figo Chan, and other pro-democracy figures called on people to turn out anyway.
“I’m not afraid of arrest, of jail, of getting beaten up or gashed,” Mr. Chan said Sunday before the march. “But I hope people understand that to fight for democracy, freedom and justice, we must sacrifice. We use peaceful, rational and nonviolent means to express our demands. We are not afraid of arrest. What I fear most is everyone giving up on our principles.”
Another Civil Human Rights Front leader, Jimmy Sham, was attacked by men with hammers on Tuesday in Kowloon. Mr. Sham was released from a hospital, but was continuing to receive treatment and not able to attend the march, the group said.
On Saturday evening, a 19-year-old man distributing fliers to call on people to join the march was assaulted near a subway station in northern Hong Kong. He was stabbed in the neck and the abdomen, and is hospitalized in serious condition, the government said.
A 22-year-old man was arrested in the attack. The local news media quoted witnesses who said the attacker shouted that Hong Kong is a part of China, and that protesters were damaging the city.
Chinese officials and the state news media have denounced the protests as a separatist movement. Some Hong Kong marchers carried Catalan flags on Sunday to show solidarity with the separatist movement in Spain. But while some protesters have called for Hong Kong’s independence from China, it is not a focus of the Hong Kong demonstrators nor one of their official demands.
The protests began over legislation, since withdrawn, that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China from Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s top leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, said in September that the government would withdraw the proposal, but public anger with the authorities has remained high.
The marchers on Sunday reiterated other longstanding demands, including an independent investigation of the police, amnesty for arrested protesters and the introduction of direct elections for the chief executive and legislature.
The organizers have also raised two newer demands: a reorganization of the police department and the scrapping of a ban on face masks.
Mrs. Lam used emergency powers this month to introduce the mask law. The move set off a wave of fresh protests and clashes with the police.
“I want to make best use of every chance to come out,” said Anne Chin, 32, a clerk who joined the march. “After the mask ban, we don’t know when the government will invoke the Emergency Regulations Ordinance again and implement laws that may further muzzle Hong Kong people’s rights.”
Demonstrators on Sunday also expressed support for Hong Kong’s ethnic minority communities. Some reports said Mr. Sham’s attackers were paid South Asian men, and people in the protest movement said they were worried that could lead to retaliatory attacks.
Some demonstrators stood outside the Kowloon Mosque and Islamic Center with signs calling on others to respect the building. “Be nice to religion,” one sign read. At Chungking Mansions, a building in Tsim Sha Tsui that holds several South Asian-run restaurants and shops, volunteers handed out bottled water to demonstrators.
Kamil Kaka, who is from southern India and has lived in Hong Kong for more than a decade, said he was a little worried that protesters could target South Asians like him.
But Mr. Kaka, 32, said he thought Hong Kong people should have a right to protest, as he stood on a side street in Tsim Sha Tsui, watching demonstrators stream down the district’s main thoroughfare.
”People are fighting for their freedom,” Mr. Kaka said.
Protesters said they were determined to show that the movement still enjoyed wide support, even if the attendance had been dampened by police bans and recent attacks. Jason Wong, a 26-year-old office worker, brought to the march 60-foot-long black banners signed beforehand by residents in each of the city’s 18 districts with colorful markers, an effort aided by a team of volunteers.
“The government has posed many restrictions and tried to oppress the Hong Kong people but we cannot show weakness,” he said. “We need to show the world that we have many people calling for common demands, even if not everyone dares to come out.”
Ezra Cheung, Elaine Yu, Javier Hernández and Tiffany May contributed reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/world/asia/hong-kong-protests.html
2019-10-20 04:03:00Z
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