Couple stuck in Hong Kong
A Manawatu¯ couple are hoping to get home soon after they were stranded when protests and unrest paralysed Hong Kong’s airport.
Margot Lupton and Ross Pratt expected Hong Kong would be a brief sightseeing stopover on the way home from visiting their children in Europe, but instead they’ve been there for five days.
Lupton said when they tried to catch their flight home on Tuesday, they were forced to turn back to their hotel after witnessing riot police clashing with protesters blockading the airport’s security gates.
‘‘It was a bit frightening, but we were fine in the end. For the last few days we’ve had to just stand there and watch it all.’’
When the couple arrived on Sunday, they saw about 15,000 black-clad protesters sitting in the airport’s arrival hall. It seemed peaceful, so they hadn’t thought there would be a problem catching their flight out, Lupton said.
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a travel advisory on Friday last week urging travellers to avoid demonstrations in Hong Kong.
That was easier said than done for Lupton and Pratt, who were staying at the Kowloon Hotel, near one of the main flashpoints of the protests on Nathan Rd.
Riot police carrying shields would come right past their hotel on the way to face-off against the protesters, and they often saw or smelt tear gas.
Lupton said the violence was isolated, most protesters were peaceful but determined, and they rarely felt threatened.
But Tuesday saw some of the months-long protest’s most violent clashes erupt in the airport and Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam warned the city was ‘‘on the brink of no return’’.
Despite that, the couple managed to get all the way to the Cathay Pacific desk to check-in, but all the staff were gone – presumably evacuated for their safety, she said.
‘‘There was no communication, nothing from them or anyone to say ‘don’t come to the airport’.’’
Over the next two days, protesters kept approaching the couple to apologise for causing them trouble and keeping them from home.
‘‘We’d say it was all right, we understand why they’re protesting.’’
The unrest erupted in June over a now-shelved proposal to allow suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial.
That grew into calls for investigations into police violence against protesters and resistance toward Beijing’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s autonomy.
Pratt talked with a medical student who told him the extradition proposal was shelved, but the protesters won’t stop until it’s fully withdrawn and truly dead.