China warns protesters over ‘terrorism’
Demonstrations force Hong Kong airport to cancel flights for second day running
Thousands of protesters forced major disruptions at Hong Kong’s airport for the second day running, hours after China issued ominous warnings that described the ongoing protests as “terrorism”.
China has begun massing a paramilitary force in a southern border city as protesters defy an intensifying police crackdown.
The protests at the airport entered their fifth day yesterday with the airport authorities cancelling all departing flights from mid-afternoon. All flights in and out of Hong Kong were cancelled from mid-afternoon Monday.
The city’s leader, Carrie Lam, earlier issued a fresh warning to protesters.
Lam said Hong Kong had “reached [a] dangerous situation” and that violence during protests would push it “down a path of no return”.
Fears have been mounting that Beijing will soon resort to military action to quell the pro-democracy protests in the semi-autonomous territory and Chinese officials and state news media have actively stoked those fears.
“The radical demonstrators in Hong Kong have repeatedly attacked police with extremely dangerous tools in recent days, which constitutes a serious violent crime, and now they are descending into terrorism,” said Yang Guang, a spokesman for the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office in Beijing. It was the first time the office had portrayed the protests in Hong Kong as “terrorism”.
“We should relentlessly crack down on such violent criminal acts without mercy, and we firmly support Hong Kong police and judicial authorities in bringing the criminals to justice as soon as possible,” Yang told reporters from state and Hong Kong media.
The nationalist Global Times tweeted a video showing Chinese armoured personnel carriers heading toward the southern city of
Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, ahead of what the newspaper called “large-scale exercises” by the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary unit. “The tasks and missions of the Armed Police include participating in dealing with rebellions, riots, serious violent and illegal incidents, terrorist attacks and other social security incidents,” the newspaper said in an accompanying story.
And China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, issued a commentary headlined “Alert! There are signs of terrorism on the streets of Hong Kong.”
The shutdown at Hong Kong’s airport followed a sharp increase in the level of force employed by Hong Kong’s police. Hours before the airport shutdown on Monday, two police officers elsewhere in the city had pinned a black-clad demonstrator to the concrete, one officer’s knee pressing the young man’s face into a pool of his own blood.
“I’ve already been arrested,” the man yelled as he cried for help. “Don’t do this, I’m begging you.”
The scene, captured by a cameraman from the Hong Kong Free Press, was jarring even in a city now accustomed to weekends awash with tear gas. It unleashed a fresh wave of anger toward Hong Kong’s police force, and the Government more broadly, spurring thousands of demonstrators to respond by occupying the airport.
At the airport on Monday, officials had halted all departures by late afternoon, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.
After sitting in the arrivals hall for much of the day, many protesters began leaving in the evening amid rumours on social media and messaging apps that police were preparing for a large clearance operation. The protesters streamed across the roads around the airport, bringing traffic to a near-standstill. But they returned yesterday.
Hong Kong police on Sunday night had intensified their crackdown with new and more aggressive tactics after more than two months of sustained protests and more than 600 arrests.
Officers disguised themselves as protesters to arrest suspects, launched tear gas inside a subway station and fired on protesters at close range with less-than-lethal ammunition. One young woman was shot in the face with what appeared to be a bean bag round, severely injuring her eye. The incident provided the latest rallying point for protesters.
“The police have had enough, to be honest,” said Clement Lai, a former police superintendent who now runs his own security firm. “They feel like they have been bullied for two months now, and they knew themselves more than capable to use real force and tactics to control the situation.
“If the order was given that they need to escalate their action and their force, these guys are more than happy to do that.”
Mel, 40, who took part in the airport demonstrations and carried a sign showing pictures of bloodied protesters, said she wanted “to show the world that what we are looking for is freedom”. She said she was angry about the “dirty methods” police used on Sunday night and early Monday morning.
Mel, who gave only her first name, added that a decision was made among many protesters to leave early on Monday evening because of fears of police forcibly clearing the airport.
The police actions appear to be part of broader efforts by the Hong
Kong Government, with support of officials in Beijing, to end the political crisis through an approach that includes ramping up pressure on businesses, levelling heavy charges against arrested protesters and using state-controlled media to pump out increasingly shrill, conspiratorial claims about who is organising the demonstrations.
“After a period of several weeks of uncertainty as to who was coordinating the government response, last week saw the rollout of Beijing’s multi-pronged, comprehensive strategy to deal with the protests,” said Sebastian Veg, a historian of China and professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris. “It consists in uniting all forces with whom common ground can be found to isolate and defeat the enemy.” He added: “The aim is to turn public opinion against the protests by drastically raising the cost of participation.”
The new police tactics came after former deputy police commissioner Alan Lau was called out of retirement last week to help the embattled force.
Lai credited the new approach, in part, to the return of Lau to the force he left in 2014. “He is coming back with a mission,” the former superintendent said.
Hospital officials said that 45 people were injured in weekend protests and that 25 remain hospitalised. Two were in serious condition.