HK slumps into recession
Unlikely to achieve any growth this year, says city’s financial secretary
Hong Kong has slumped into recession, hit by five months of anti-government protests that erupted in flames at the weekend, and is unlikely to achieve any growth this year, the city’s financial secretary said.
Black-clad and masked demonstrators set fire to shops and hurled petrol bombs at police on Sunday.
Television footage showed protesters, who streamed into the Kowloon hotel and shopping artery of Nathan Road on Sunday, setting fire to street barricades and squirting petrol from plastic bottles on to fires at subway entrances amid running battles with police.
“The blow (from the protests) to our economy is comprehensive,” said Paul Chan in a blogpost, adding that a preliminary estimate for third-quarter GDP on Thursday would show two successive quarters of contraction.
He also said it would be “extremely difficult” to achieve the government’s pre-protest forecast of 0-1 per cent annual economic growth.
The rallying cry of Sunday’s protests was to fight perceived police brutality and defend Muslims and journalists. Police last weekend fired water cannon at a group of people standing outside a mosque and journalists have been wounded in clashes.
The programming staff union of public broadcaster RTHK said on Monday it had called on police to identify officers who “attacked and ripped the face mask” off one of its journalists on Sunday. It said she was wearing a reflective vest, identifying herself as a journalist.
Pictures circulating online suggested she was wearing a gas mask, to protect herself against tear gas and pepper spray. Ordinary face masks were banned this month under a resurrected colonial-era emergency law.
The police, who deny using excessive force, told reporters they had repeatedly asked journalists to keep their distance so police can do their job.
They said an officer had removed a journalist’s mask, which had seemed an “undesirable” incident, but they said they did not know the full context. The Hong Kong Free Press reporter was arrested for failing to show ID and being uncooperative and obstructing police.