Hong Kong ‘fading away’ as brutality grows and students dig in for long siege
Aprotester yells “Fire in the hole!”, a projectile shatters a pane of glass, and a cheer goes up from the gathered students. Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Polyu) is one of the city’s leading engineering schools, and the students here are clearly pleased with their improvised catapult.
But there is nothing academic about this experiment in ballistics. Polyu is one of several universities across Hong Kong that were turned into fortresses this week, as students and protesters fearing police assault barricaded and fortified campuses with catapults, petrol bombs, and bows and arrows.
The campus takeovers are the latest escalation in the most violent week to rock Hong Kong since pro-democracy protests erupted here in June.
On Thursday, a 70-year-old street cleaner died after being hit on the head by one of several bricks police said had been thrown by “masked rioters”. On Monday, police blamed a “rioter” for dousing a man in petrol and setting him on fire. The victim is in critical condition. On the same day, police shot a protester in the abdomen. He was in a stable condition yesterday.
“We can no longer can say Hong Kong is a safe city,” Matthew Cheung, chief secretary for administration told a briefing. Inside Hong Kong’s fortified university campuses, many agree – but in their view it is the authorities who should be feared. “There’s laws to restrict people’s behaviour, like breaking windows, but there’s no laws restricting the police’s behaviour if they do something illegal, so they can keep increasing their brutality. This is how ridiculous society is here now,” said Carol, a 21-year-old at Polyu.
Protesters here initially took to the streets to demand that authorities reverse a controversial law that would have allowed extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China.
That bill has now been shelved, but protesters have continued to demand the resignation of Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, and an inquiry into police brutality. But the increasing use of violence by both police and protesters has locked the sides into cycle of escalation that many fear may be difficult to break.
“When it started in June, an overwhelming majority did not want to see violence used and were not keen to support that, and restrained violence. Now you have a fairly high threshold for tolerating or using violence in self-defence,” said Prof Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
“When you have this kind of situation, there are only two ways to end it. The practical way is a political solution. The second is massive repression, where you use so much force that everybody is terrified into submission.”
The campus takeovers began after intense clashes between protesters and police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on Tuesday.
More than 1,000 tear gas canisters were fired and parts of the campus set ablaze, and many students now fear arrests in educational institutions.
By Thursday evening, at least five campuses had been taken over, including the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University. At Polyu, students have blocked roads and set up a security perimeter watched over by footbridges littered with petrol bombs and rocks.
Traffic through the neighbouring Hung Hom Cross Harbor Tunnel, a 10-lane road route between the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong Island used by hundreds of thousands daily, has ground to a halt.
“What’s happening now is really a gradual build-up. It took five months for things to get to this stage from the government’s inaction and increasing violence by the police,” said Ty, 21, from the University of Hong Kong.
“The CUHK attack was a trigger for all students of other universities in Hong Kong to protect our own land. We all help each other out, the tertiary institutions of Hong Kong are now standing together,” he added.
Makeshift security checks have been set up to identify undercover police. Protesters at the gates shout “Glory to Hong Kong, Revolution of our times!”. Bricks are strewn across roads in the university, some of them arranged in miniature imitations of the trilithons of Stonehenge.
As dusk fell on Thursday, sparks could be seen as protesters broke down railings and reassembled them as barricades. Someone threw petrol bombs at the toll booths of the Cross Harbor Tunnel, the fire consuming the plastic huts, sending up a pall of smoke visible for miles.
Inside, the campus bustled with the activity of a town making ready for a lengthy siege. The canteen was packed with dry foods, drinks, instant noodles, and a host of other supplies.
There was a small mountain of colourful clothing – disguises, protesters explained, for people who wanted to leave the campus without being stopped, searched or arrested for wearing black, the hallmark colour of the protesters. In the kitchen, volunteers ran frantically to and fro, cooking an evening meal. Black-clad protesters wearing full face masks circulated with metal plates piled high with chicken, gleefully dishing it out to anyone hungry. Everything was free of charge, and everyone could take what they needed. Nearby, a dry swimming pool was being used to test weapons. Makeshift crossbows and slingshots could be seen.
By late evening, protesters began to bed down wherever they could find a spot: on a gymnasium floor, packed with sleeping mats; stretched out on a sofa, or simply curled up in a chair. It was a peaceful night, and at daybreak yesterday they woke to find neither police or tear gas bothering them.
But no one here knows how long their occupation can last – or whether the unique city that is modern Hong Kong will survive. “The main value of Hong Kong is that there are three systems running independently, judicial, executive, and legislative. But the law is now being used as a tool by the government,” said Carol, 21, a student. “The system is broken, Hong Kong is fading away.”