CHINESE SOLDIERS ISSUE WARNING TO PROTESTERS.
Military breaks silence as ban on masks flouted
HONG KONG • The Chinese military issued an unprecedented warning Sunday amid another night of violence in Hong Kong, as masked protesters risked tear gas and arrest to march in defiance of an emergency ban on face coverings.
As initially peaceful mass protests on Hong Kong island and in Kowloon spiralled into fierce clashes with riot police, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army warned protesters they could be arrested for targeting its barracks with laser lights.
The warning, the first of its kind during four months of escalating unrest, was displayed on a yellow flag as hundreds of demonstrators shone laser pens at troops. Soldiers responded with spotlights and filmed the scene.
The Kowloon Tong metro station was trashed. The entire mass transit rail system, targeted by protesters who believe it has colluded with the government and police against them, was suspended on Sunday evening.
Wildcat protests sprang up and disappeared quickly as bands of activists played a game of cat and mouse with police. The most radical threw Molotov cocktails at advancing officers, who responded with tear gas and arrests. A journalist was struck on the head, briefly setting his helmet on fire.
In one isolated moment of brutality, a taxi driver was badly beaten by protesters after he drove into them. It is not clear what sparked the incident.
The day started out peacefully as tens of thousands of protesters — including families with children and elderly people — attended two large unsanctioned rallies. It was a sign of the widespread public anger at a move by Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, to use a sweeping Emergency Regulations Ordinance to enforce a face mask ban that many believe impairs their freedoms.
By mid-afternoon police had launched tear gas at protesters erecting barricades along major routes, before pushing demonstrators back and making multiple arrests in the shopping district of Causeway Bay.
Lam justified the ban as necessary to end the turmoil that began with a controversial extradition bill but has spiralled into a wider call for democratic rights. However, many in Hong Kong believe the move has only fuelled mounting public anger.
On Sunday morning, pro-democracy lawmakers failed in a high court bid to seek an emergency injunction against the ban, arguing that emergency powers bypassed the legislature and contravened the city’s mini-constitution.
Sharron Fast, a lecturer in media law at the University of Hong Kong, warned that the use of the emergency regulation had given the chief executive an “unlimited amount of power, in which she alone can enact laws.”