Monday September 2, 2019 3TOPNEWS
Grass-roots branches need to stress ideology, improve communication
Blood stain cleanup
By Wang Wenwen and Chen Qingqing in
Hong Kong
As violence erupted across Hong Kong on Satur-
day night, the city’s metro authorities closed five
lines and the police arrested dozens of protesters
inside the stations.
Members of the police Special Tactical Squad
known as “raptors” arrested 40 people in the
Prince Edward station, as rioters fled to the sta-
tion following violent street protests.
Western media and some local media were
quick to accuse police of using excessive force
at the station, but video clips showing what hap-
pened before the police arrived, tell the true story.
An online video clip shows rioters assaulting
passengers and hurling fire extinguishers into the
train, releasing plumes of fire retardant through-
out the carriages. An elderly man confronted the
rioters and prevented them from getting on the
train, but protesters still made loud provocations
outside the train on the platform.
Around 11 pm, police rushed into the station
to make arrests. A police spokesperson said later
at a press conference that protesters who assault-
ed others and damaged property were arrested
inside the station.
A TV news report showed police beating peo-
ple with their batons and deploying pepper spray
and was shared by Western and local media as an
example of police brutality against civilians.
Reports neglected to explain that many rioters
changed clothes and assumed the identity of “or-
dinary people” to get away from the police after
participating in illegal protests.
The viral videos aroused public sentiment
against the police, with little mention that the
rioters vandalized MTR property, assaulted pas-
sengers and impeded public order after attending
an unauthorized protest earlier that day.
This is not the first time Western and some
Hong Kong media have spoken up for protesters.
They point cameras at the police and call rioters
“citizens.” The real peaceful residents who were
attacked by rioters are hardly ever shown and the
current chaos in Hong Kong is partly the fault of
such media reports, said Wang Dan, an associate
professor at the University of Hong Kong.
By Chen Qingqing and Bai Yunyi
in Hong KongA group of Hong Kong youths
launched a special “flash squad” ac-
tivity on Sunday morning, erasing in-
sulting slogans, graffiti and cleaning
up the mess left in the city by radical
protesters on Saturday.
“Rioters made Hong Kong full of
violence and hatred, and we don’t
want the hostility to influence tour-
ists from the mainland,” Ko Chung-
kit, one of the initiators of the activity,
told the Global Times on Sunday.
“I hope our move will narrow the
divergence and let people know that
there are Hongkongers who long for
peace and love,” Ko said.
The youthful volunteers started
their Sunday morning by cleaning
up the Wan Chai district, which is a
main attraction for tourists from theChinese mainland and overseas.
“We don’t want tourists to be
frightened by protesters’ slogans and
mistakenly think that all Hong Kong
residents are like them,” said Ko.
Volunteers also replaced offen-
sive graffiti with friendly slogans like
“We’re sorry, but please don’t hate
Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong is still
open for business.”
This is not the first time that Ko
and his followers have cleaned up the
mess left by rioters. Last Saturday,
similar activities were held at Sham
Shui Po and Mong Kok.
Recent demonstrations in Hong
Kong have all involved violent inci-
dents after some protesters left their
approved gathering places to cover
exterior walls of buildings in black
paint, and insult and threaten police,
government officials and people from
the mainland, leaving responsibleresidents to remove the smelly gar-
bage left by protesters, Ko said.
“We are all Hong Kong residents
and Chinese, why are we hurting
each other like this?” Ko said emo-
tionally.
Ko and other volunteers are wor-
ried about being attacked by radicals
so they clean up in the morning, be-
fore the “rioters get up.”
“The rain gave us some relief be-
cause we were willing to do cleaning
in the rain while they weren’t” willing
to protest, Ko said.
Hong Kong needs neither radical
nor peaceful protesters. The most
important thing is to stop violence
and hatred as soon as possible and
rebuild the society with love, said Ko.By Deng XiaociThe Communist Party of China
(CPC) Central Committee is-
sued a regulation on the Party’s
publicity and communication
work, emphasizing the impor-
tance of ideological work and
requiring publicity organs to be
established in Party branches
in villages, state-owned enter-
prises and universities.
In a notice, the committee
said that publicity and commu-
nication work is of vital impor-
tance to the Party and is a fine
tradition and political advan-
tage for the Party as it leads peo-
ple to understand the success
in the revolution and national
construction and reform, the
Xinhua News Agency reported.
The circular asked CPCorganizations at all levels to
further strengthen the Party’s
overall leadership over public-
ity work to ensure that major
decisions and plans of the CPC
Central Committee in this re-
gard are implemented.
The regulation emphasizes
that publicity work should
build a socialist ideology with
strong cohesion and leader-
ship, to strengthen the vitality
and creativity of socialist spiri-
tual civilization and to enhance
the attractiveness and influence
of Chinese culture.
The regulation clarifies du-
ties and principles of the Party’s
publicity departments and the
domains of their administra-
tion, as well as methods to carry
out the Party’s publicity work,
officials with the Publicity De-partment of the CPC Central
Committee said in a Saturday
interview.
The full text of the regula-
tion was not published yet.
The regulation said that the
Party’s publicity departments
should promote the Party’s pol-
icies and decisions, analyze and
keep informed of public opin-
ions, hold news conferences ac-
cordingly and conduct publicity
work to other countries, so to
help exchange of cultures and
inform other countries of the
human rights development of
China.
The regulation contains a
separate article addressing a
relatively weak point of Party
publicity work at the grassroots
level. It stipulates that Party or-
ganizations at the county levelshould have a member of the
Party committee who is specifi-
cally responsible for the work.
It requires Party publicity agen-
cies be established in Party or-
ganizations within state-owned
or state-controlled enterprises,
and publicity departments
should be established in Party
branches in colleges and uni-
versities.
While international public
opinion and discourse is still
driven by Western media, Chi-
nese voices have become stron-
ger. Clashes between the two
pose challenges especially at
the grassroots levels, so it is ur-
gent that malicious infiltration
from the West be prevented,
and to unwaveringly stick to
the Chinese route and ideology,
a Beijing-based media policyexpert surnamed Luo, told the
Global Times on Sunday.
The analyst cited the recent
unrest in Hong Kong as an ex-
ample, saying that “the special
administrative region is unique
in certain ways, but the obvious
lack of quality media work in
the society, in particular in edu-
cation institutions such as uni-
versities, to some extent, has
led to the current chaos, among
other causes.”
Analysts on Sunday adcom-
mented that such a regulation
on publicity is of great neces-
sity, especially where Chinese
publicity work is increasingly
confronted with challenges
from Western ideologies, and it
is crucial to stick to the correct
political course set by the Party
and China.Party orders units to step up publicity
Youths clean up mess and hate left by rioters
West blind to full story
of HK arrests: expert A city
employee
cleans blood
stains on the
site of a knife
attack in Lyon,
southeastern
France on
Sunday
which left
one dead and
eight injured.
A police
source said
the alleged
perpetrator
was an Afghan
asylum-seeker.
Photo: AFP
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