The Guardian - 03.08.2019

Saturday 3 August 2019 The Guardian •

Brace yourself 27

Surgeons fi nd boy

with 526 teeth

Page 32

California

Horse racers fear for

future of sport

Page 31

Hong Kong’s

defi ant civil

servants take

to streets

Lily Kuo

Hong Kong

Thousands of civil servants in Hong

Kong yesterday took to the streets in

a rare display of defi ance as the city

braces for four consecutive days of

mass demonstrations.

The public servants, who are

normally politically neutral, defi ed a

government order to remain “totally

loyal” to Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie

Lam , and crowded into a public park

near government offi ces.

An hour after the event had started,

people were still streaming into the

park, many dressed in black and some

in masks to conceal their identity.

Cheung Ka-po, one of the organ-

isers of the rally, told the crowd: “In

the face of right and wrong, if we stay

silent we betray our duty.” The crowd

yelled: “Hong Kong people, go! Hong

Kong civil servants, go!”

Large-scale protests are planned for

today and Sunday and a citywide strike

has been called for Monday. It will be

the eighth weekend in a row of anti-

government protests.

On Thursday night riot police

raided an industrial building in Sha

Tin, in Hong Kong’s New Territories.

They found protective gear including

helmets, gas masks and kneepads , and

“off ensive weapons” including petrol

bombs, hiking poles and baseball bats.

Seven men and one woman

between the ages of 24 and 31 were

India warns visitors to quit

Kashmir amid rising tension

Azhar Farooq Srinagar

Rebecca Ratcliff e Delhi

Tourists and Hindu pilgrims visiting

a Himalayan cave shrine in Indian-

administered Kashmir were yesterday

advised by the government to leave the

area immediately as India announced

the deployment of thousands of extra

troops amid heightened tensions and

growing fears of unrest.

Offi cials said they had recovered

a Pakistani-made mine, as well as

ammunition, explosives and other

weapons, following intelligence sug-

gesting attacks were planned on routes

used by the hundreds of thousands of

people trekking to the Amarnath cave.

Kashmir’s home secretary, Shaleen

Kabra , said in a statement: “In the

interest of safety and security of the

tourist and Amarnath Yatris [pil-

grims], it is advised that they may

curtail their stay in the [Kashmir] val-

ley immediately .”

The advice follows the announce-

ment that India would deploy an extra

10,000 troops in Kashmir , which

caused panic in the disputed region.

This year, about 300,000 people

embarked on the 45-day annual pil-

grimage to the cave shrine, high up in

the mountains. It is not uncommon for

Hindu pilgrims to be targeted – in 2017,

seven were killed in a bus attack – but

an order asking people to leave is rare.

Kashmir is claimed by India and

Pakistan in full and ruled in part by

both. An insurgency has waxed and

waned on the Indian-administered

side for three decades, and tens of

thousands of people have been killed.

Yesterday, an improvised explosive

device hit an Indian army vehicle in

southern Pulwama district while a

gunfi ght raged in nearby Shopian dis-

trict. The leak of a series of orders last

week caused alarm in the region. One

told Indian Railways staff in the Kash-

mir valley to stock enough dry rations

to last four months and referred to a

“forecast of deteriorating situation”.

The infl ux of 10,000 extra troops

also prompted rumours that Delhi may

be preparing to scrap Kashmir’s special

status. “The deployment of troops is

a very signifi cant move, and this usu-

ally happens when the government is

anticipating a law and order situation,”

said Khalid Shah, an associate fellow

at the Observer Research Founda-

tion thinktank. “There is a signifi cant

degree of panic among the people

because they have no clarity on what

is really going to happen .”

Residents have rushed to ATMs to

withdraw money and long queues

have formed at petrol stations. Umar,

a state government employee willing

to be identifi ed only by his fi rst name,

said people were living in a state of

uncertainty. He was due to get married

later this month but was worried he

might be forced to cancel the wedding.

“Within the family we are discuss-

ing what to do,” he said. “We have

options to cut short the functions and

make the ceremony as quick as possi-

ble, but we are also unsure at this point

if that is even possible .”

Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu

nationalist Bharatiya Janata party

(BJP) has promised to scrap article

35A of the Indian constitution, which

protects the demography of Mus-

lim-majority Kashmir by prohibiting

non-state subjects from buying land.

Analysts say doing so would almost

certainly trigger unrest and reignite

tensions with Pakistan, and that the

government would be unlikely to

take such action during the Amar-

nath Yatra, which ends in mid-August.

In February, 40 Indian paramil-

itaries were killed in a suicide car

bombing that brought India and Paki-

stan close to war. Since then, incidents

have fallen, but the former Kashmir

chief minister Mehbooba Mufti , who

headed an alliance government with

the BJP, described the situation as

“disconcerting” and warned of a mis-

information campaign.

Yesterday, India’s foreign minis-

ter, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar , again

rejected Donald Trump’s off er to medi-

ate in its dispute with Pakistan over

Kashmir. The US president’s claim that

India’s prime minister had asked him

to mediate was quickly denied by Delhi

last month, where it fuelled anger in

parliament.

Jaishankar said he told the US secre-

tary of state, Mike Pompeo, whom he

met on the sidelines of an Asian secu-

rity forum in Bangkok, that discussion

of the region would be between India

and Pakistan only. Trump reiterated

his off er on Thursday.

arrested. They included Andy Chan,

the founder of the Hong Kong National

party, which was banned last year.

Dozens of protesters surrounded

local police stations from Thursday

night into yesterday morning, chant-

ing “Free the martyrs.”

In a separate operation, a family

of three was detained on suspicion

of possessing explosives after police

raided an apartment and seized

partially made smoke bombs.

Police also said yesterday that

another seven men had been arrested

for unlawful assembly connected to

the Yuen Long attack on 21 July. None

have yet been charged.

Forty-four protesters have been

charged with rioting , a crime that

carries a penalty of up to 10 years

in prison. Critics say authorities are

using harsher measures in an attempt

to intimidate demonstrators.

The political crisis in Hong Kong

has deepened in the past few weeks

after almost two months of protests

that began over an extradition bill that

would allow suspects be sent to main-

land China. Focus has now turned to

the authorities and the police after the

attack on commuters by suspected

triad members in Yuen Long, as more

segments of Hong Kong society have

begun to condemn the government for

its handling of the incident.

Ahead of the protests, Beijing has

ramped up its accusations that for-

eign countries are “fanning the fi re”

of unrest in the city. Yesterday, Xie

Feng, the commissioner for the for-

eign ministry in Hong Kong, called

on foreign forces to “withdraw their

black hands”.

▲ Demonstrators hold up their

phones as protests continue against

the controversial extradition bill

PHOTOGRAPH: BILLY HC KWOK/GETTY IMAGES

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