HUNDREDS OF PROTESTERS DESCEND ON HONG KONG’S AIRPORT
Hundreds of prodemocracy protesters packed Hong Kong airport’s arrivals hall today and targeted tourists with leaflets about how their city was ‘torn apart.’
The demonstrators, mostly youngsters and wearing black t-shirts, distributed flyers headlined ‘Dear travellers’ above artwork depicting the months-long protests that have plunged the city into chaos.
‘You’ve arrived in a broken, torn-apart city, not the one you have once pictured. Yet for this Hong Kong, we fight,’ the flyers said.
The increasingly violent protests are posing a grave challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
What started as an angry response to a now-suspended law that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited for trial in Chinese courts has grown to include demands for greater democracy, the resignation of Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, and even keeping out mainland tourists.
The airport demonstration came as the city’s powerful property developers spoke out for the first time, urging calm after a dozen big companies warned in recent days that the unrest had dented earnings.
‘It will be a peaceful protest as long as the police do not show up,’ one protester, Charlotte Lam, 16, told Reuters.
The escalating violence has already prompted travel warnings from countries including the United States and Australia, although the airport demonstration did not draw complaints from some travellers. ‘Right now I just hope it won’t delay my flight. But at the same time, as long as you’re making a point without making too much trouble, it’s OK I guess,’ said a woman from New Zealand.