Terror warning for Hong Kong protesters
Xi says leader Lam has his support in ‘punishing the violent criminals’
Hong Kong police have warned protesters that they are moving “one step closer to terrorism” by sinking the city into chaos, as riot squads skirmished with militant students at major universities.
China’s leader said ending the violence and restoring order are Hong Kong’s most pressing task, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
President Xi Jinping, who is attending the Brics summit in Brazil, said his Government would continue to firmly support Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, the police and the courts in “severely punishing the violent criminals”.
Police spokesman Tse Chun-chung denied his department had been asked to enforce a possible curfew this weekend. A Chinese state media outlet later deleted its tweet saying authorities were considering a weekend curfew.
The Hong Kong Government, in a short statement, also called the curfew rumours “totally unfounded”. “The force is certainly capable and determined to control Hong Kong’s social unrest at the moment,” Tse said. “We welcome any new measures that can help us to achieve the goal of restoring the public safety and order in Hong Kong.”
In unusually harsh language, Tse said students were turning university campuses into “weapons factories” and a “hotbed” of crime.
“Their acts are another step closer to terrorism,” Tse said, warning of a major disaster if petrol bombs stored on campuses were to catch fire.
He said violence that broke out this week at Chinese University of Hong Kong is spreading to other campuses “like a cancer cell”, mentioning specifically Hong Kong University and Baptist University. “It’s time to wake up. No society can tolerate this much senseless violence,” he said.
Protesters who have barricaded themselves in at the Chinese University of Hong Kong yesterday partially cleared a road they were blocking and demanded that the Government commit to holding local elections on November 24.
One lane of the Tolo Highway was cleared in both directions yester, but the Government had not yet reopened it to traffic citing safety concerns, public broadcaster RTHK said.
The protesters at the university said the road would be blocked again and warned of other unspecified consequences if the Government didn’t meet their demand within 24 hours.
The district council elections are seen as a barometer of public sentiment in the semi-autonomous Chinese
territory, which has been riven by anti-government protests for more than five months.
Pro-democracy activists say the Government may use the escalating violence as a reason to cancel the elections.
Meanwhile, with no end to the protests in sight, the beleaguered police force is appointing a group of prison guards as special constables. Up to 100 officers from the Correctional Services Department who are already familiar with anti-riot equipment will be given additional training.
Anti-government protests have riven Hong Kong, and divided its people, for more than five months.
The movement began over a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. Activists saw it as another sign of an erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms, which China promised would be maintained for 50 years under a “one nation, two systems” principle when the former British colony returned to Chinese control in 1997.