A12 eZ su the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019
ToP: Police fire tear gas to disperse protesters in the Sai Wan ho
district. Elsewhere, confrontations erupted at university campuses.
ABoVE: Carrie Lam, center, hong kong’s chief executive, called
protesters “the people’s enemy” after a man who was castigating
protesters was doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire.“He was under threat by two
people; if he l ost his g un, he w ould
be under severe threat. Hence, he
decided to fire,” Kwok Pak-chung,
regional commander of Hong
Kong Island, told reporters.
The condition of the man, who
was struck in the abdomen, was
not l ife-threatening, Kwok said.
In the United States, Congress
is considering a bill that would
pave the way for sanctions against
people who undermine Hong
Kong’s autonomy. The bill, ap-
proved unanimously b y the H ouse
of representatives, would require
the U.S. government to consider
annually whether it should con-
tinue to treat Hong Kong as a
trading entity separate from
mainland China in response to
political developments. However,
the bill is stuck in the Senate,
where majority Leader mitch mc-
Connell (r-Ky.) so far h as declined
to bring it to a debate.
In a statement, the U.S. State
Department condemned the vio-
lence in Hong Kong, urged the
government to “build on its dia-
logue” with the public, and said
the United States is watching the
situation unfold “with grave con-
cern.” Department spokesperson
morgan ortagus also urged Bei-
jing to “honor the commitments”
made to Hong Kong, including a
high degree of autonomy, rule of
law and civil liberties, which are
“key to preserving its special sta-
tus under U.S. l aw.”
Hong Kong is governed by a
“one country, two systems” ar-
rangement, under which Beijing
pledged t o maintain the t erritory’s
relative freedoms and autonomy
for h alf a century after its r eturn to
Chinese rule in 1997. But China
has been tightening its grip, trig-
gering anger in Hong Kong and
uncertainty about its status as a
global financial center.
Amnesty International brand-
ed monday’s shooting as “another
shocking low for the Hong Kong
police” and called for an urgent
independent examination.
In the meantime, protesters
continue to turn their fury on po-
lice.
“They’re crazy. It’s outrageous,”
said Kong, a 27-year-old woman
on her lunch break, referring to
monday’s shooting. “They’ve lost
control.”
f [email protected]David Crawshaw in hong Kong and liu
yang in beijing contributed to this
report.of pro-democracy lawmakers.
Ye t far from blunting the de-
mocracy m ovement, the i ntensify-
ing crackdown has prompted pro-
testers to adopt more-aggressive
tactics. With the deeply divided
city descending into disorder,
there has b een n o sign that Beijing
might change tack or allow the
Hong Kong government to offer a
political c ompromise.
Protests began in June when
the Hong Kong leader tried to
push through a now-withdrawn
extradition proposal that would
have allowed criminal suspects to
face trial in mainland China. But
the movement has widened into
an uprising against Beijing’s en-
croachment on Hong Kong’s au-
tonomy, encompassing demands
for full democracy and police ac-
countability.
The unrest has pushed the city
into recession. on monday, nu-
merous shops were closed, train
lines were shut, a nd many workers
were unable to reach their offices.
Universities canceled classes. Po-
lice said a gasoline bomb was
thrown into a subway car. A police
officer who rode a motorcycle into
a crowd of demonstrators was
placed on leave pending an inves-
tigation.
In central Hong Kong, as police
retreated in vans at one point in
the afternoon, crowds on the foot-
bridges above chanted, “fight for
freedom! Stand with Hong K ong!”
other onlookers shouted and
threw d ebris at t he v ans.
Protesters occupied a main
thoroughfare, erecting barricades
and setting fires near high-end
hotels. As protesters blocked a
road tunnel, they clashed with on-
lookers and taxi drivers. Some
travelers abandoned their cars
and walked with t heir suitcases.
In an editorial published mon-
day night, the nationalist Global
Times newspaper compared the
Hong Kong protesters to the Is-
lamic S tate.
“We sternly condemn the mobs
for their barbarity of setting those
ordinary citizens, those who dis-
agreed with them, on fire. Their
appalling behavior has become in-
distinguishable from that of IS
members,” the paper’s Chinese-
language edition s aid.
At a news conference monday,
police defended the officer’s deci-
sion earlier in the day to open fire
on the apparently unarmed pro-
tester, saying the demonstrator
had wanted to take the officer’s
firearm.in the eye by a rubber bullet fired
by police. A protester w as s hot i n a
confrontation with an officer last
month, and another fell to his
death under q uestionable circum-
stances last week. Protesters have
set fires in subway stations and
vandalized businesses they sus-
pect are owned by those sympa-
thetic t o Beijing.
Throughout more than five
months of unrest, Beijing has ex-
horted Hong Kong’s leaders to
clamp down harder on the dis-
senters. Hong Kong authorities
have obliged with thousands of
arrests, d raconian new laws, a bar-
rage of tear gas and the detentionprotester, referring reporters to
other government departments.
The State Council office responsi-
ble for issues pertaining to Hong
Kong did not respond to a request
for comment.
“It’s a police state in Hong
Kong,” said Jerry, 26, a finance
worker who joined the protests
and gave only one name out of f ear
of retribution. “Police are murder-
ers.”
This is not the first time Hong
Kong has experienced violence
since the protests began this sum-
mer. A young woman became a
symbol of the pro-democracy
demonstrations after being shotall control,” said Willy Wo-Lap
Lam, a professor of Chinese poli-
tics at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong. “This, together with
the death of the student protester
last week, is responsible for to-
day’s outbreak of d isorder.”
Student protesters “see no fu-
ture ahead of them” b ecause of t he
government’s crackdown and re-
fusal to compromise, added Lam
(no relation to Carrie Lam). “It
seems like Beijing wants to use
[the escalating protests] as an ex-
cuse to impose tougher measures.”
In Beijing, foreign ministry
spokesman Geng S huang d eclined
to comment on t he shooting of thespeed to a watching world may
serve as a deterrent against such
extreme government violence. B ut
the developments on monday —
captured on videos that quickly
went viral — have led many to
worry that the government in
Hong Kong may now f eel justified,
if not emboldened, to use ever
more severe methods to put an
end to the protests, once and for
all.
“Senior officials have issued
very d raconian comments regard-
ing the p romulgation o f a national
security law and s tepping up over-
hong kong from A
Hong Kong violence leads to fears of a harsher crackdown
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