Section:GDN 1N PaGe:21 Edition Date:190724 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 23/7/2019 19:40 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Guardian •
‘Perverts in the bushes’ 21
Paris park’s naturists
complain of voyeurs
Page 24
Puerto Rico
Calls for governor to
go amid mass protests
Page 25Lily Kuo
Hong KongProtesters in Hong Kong have pledged
to stand up to armed attackers who
beat demonstrators at the weekend,
with public anger growing towards the
government and police.
Demonstrators have fi led for a per-
mit to hold a rally on Saturday in Yuen
Long , the district on the outskirts of
Hong Kong where dozens of masked
men chased and beat commuters
and protesters with wooden poles
and metal rods on Sunday, leaving at
least 45 people in hospital. Police only
arrived after the assailants left.
Footage of the attack , which
included a pregnant woman being
hit, protesters being punched and
kneed, and commuters screaming and
trying to shield themselves, fuelled
further political unrest as demonstra-
tors, opposition lawmakers and others
demanded answers from authorities
for failing to stop the violence.
Max Chung, who delivered the
application for a letter of no objection
from the police, which is required to
hold a rally, said: “We want to show toPatrick Wintour
Diplomatic editorA deserted oil tanker described as
a “fl oating bomb” that is currently
anchored off the coast of war-torn
Yemen has the potential to create an
environmental disaster, according to
experts.
A by product of the battle between
the Saudi-backed UN Yemen
government and the Houthis , the
tanker, containing over 1m barrels
of oil, is said to be eroding fast, but
UN offi cials’ plans to visit the ship
this week to assess the scale of the
damage have been blocked. There are
fears that gases have built up in the
storage tanks, which means the ship
could explode.
Mark Lowcock, the UN
humanitarian co ordinator, told the UN
security council last week an inspec-
tion team had again been refused
permission by Houthis to visit the
ship moored several kilometres out-
side the Red Sea port of Ras Isa , north
of Hodeidah.
The two sides in the confl ict in
conversation with the UN blame each
other for failing to reach a solution
about what to do about the ship, and
its valuable cargo.
The UN-recognised Yemen govern-
ment has warned in a letter to the UN
of a “bad and deteriorating situation”
and has produced a video warning of
an environmental disaster that could
dwarf any previous oil spillage.
The ship , known as the S afer fl oat-
ing storage and offl oading terminal, is
owned by the Yemen oil company, and
allows vessels to moor off shore and
transfer oil extracted and processed
from operations in the Marib oil fi eld
in central Yemen. The tanker contains
34 crude oil tanks of diff erent sizes and
volumes, amounting to a total capac-
ity of around 3m barrels.
Lowcock told the UN s ecurity c oun-
cil last month “If the tanker ruptures
or explodes, we could see the coast-
line polluted all along the Red Sea”. Reuters
BeijingThe former Chinese premier Li Peng ,
reviled by rights activists and many in
China’s capital as the “Butcher of Bei-
jing” for his role in the crackdown on
the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests,
has died, state media reported.
Li, who was 90, was reported by
Xinhua to have died on Monday in
Beijing, more than three decades
after his government authorised a
bloody suppression of student-led
pro-democracy protests.
Along with the paramount leader at
the time, Deng Xiaoping , Li was seenthe public and international commu-
nity that Hong Kongers, we will never
surrender in front of terrorism .”
Last night, unverified footage
showed men in white gathering in
Tuen Mun, another city in the New
Territories, and one video circulat-
ing online showed two men in white
dragging a man in a black shirt across
the road. But there were no reports of
major disturbances.
Activists have paid for adverts to
appear today in British media out-
lets calling on the UK government to
impose sanctions on those responsible
for what is described as the suppres-
sion of human rights and freedoms in
Hong Kong. They also call on Britain
to include provisions on human rights,
civil liberties and democratisation in
any post-Brexit agreements with Hong
Kong and China.
The protests, which were initially
over a bill that would allow suspects to
be extradited from Hong Kong to main-
land China, now include demands for
an investigation into police violence
against protesters.
Protesters are furious at the slow
police response to the attack in Yuen
Long and their pursuit of the case. Six
people have now been arrested for
“unlawful assembly”.
Critics are also angry at the gov-
ernment’s weak condemnation of the
violence. Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie
Lam, said the “shocking violence” in
Yuen Long would be investigated, but
she devoted most of her comments to
criticising protesters, who surrounded
Beijing’s liaison offi ce in Hong Kong
and defaced the national emblem of
the People’s Republic of China on Sun-
day. “My colleagues and I have been
making eff orts to identify the root
causes of this discontent,” she said.Journal Leader comment Page 2 Hong Kong activists plan
fresh rally at site of attack
Former Chinese
premier Li Peng
dies aged 90
as an unapologetic hard liner respon-
sible for ordering the 1989 assaults in
central Beijing. His declaration, on TV,
of martial law over parts of the capital
made him one of the most prominent
faces of a crackdown that continues to
colour global perception of the Com-
munist party leadership. Yesterday
Xinhua said he had taken “a clear stand
and ... decisive measures to ... pacify
the counter-revolutionary riots”.
Li, who was premier up to 1998, was
born in Sichuan. He was orphaned as a
toddler when his father, Li Shuoxun ,
an early Communist party revolution-
ary, was killed by nationalist forces. He
was raised as the ward of the premier
Zhou Enlai. A hydropower engineer by
training, Li rose through the ranks as
an energy offi cial. He championed the
controversial Yangtze river project, the
Three Gorges Dam – a lightning rod for
what critics saw as China’s growth-at-
all-costs economic model.Journal Obituary Page 8 Ye m e n
Tanker left
marooned by
fi ghting ‘could
explode’
past 11 years the EU naval force’s
Operation Atalanta has overseen
an anti-piracy mission off the coast
of Somalia and is seen as a success.
Many of the UK government’s
instructions to British shipping
in the Gulf, including on seeking
advice from naval patrol boats in
advance, are borrowed from the
advice deployed in Somalia.
In the Gulf, a multinational
operation, Combined Taskforce 150,
also exists, mainly aimed at fi ghting
terrorism and the drugs trade.
There is also a commercial
imperative for Britain to intervene
in the Gulf. Iran has threatened
to target the US and the UK in the
region, and many ships will be
tempted to change their fl ags. Flag
switching will imperil the UK ship
registry, which has already lost 30%
of its tonnage this year because of
uncertainty over Brexit.
Finally, there is a deeper political
purpose. Both Europe and the UK
have vowed to continue defence
co-operation after Brexit. Both see
the benefi ts. France, in particular,
cannot aff ord to lose its key defence
partner. A European maritime
operation, especially one proposed
by the UK, in or out of the EU,
would be a practical sign that future
defence co-operation will endure.
▲ Images from
Iranian
television show
Revolutionary
Guards onboard
the seized tanker
Stena Impero as
it is anchored off
the Iranian port
of Bandar Abbas
PHOTOGRAPH:
IRIB/GETTY The tanker,
near the coast of
Yemen, contains
more than 1m
barrels of oil.
There are fears
gases have built
up in the storage
tanks, risking an
explosion and
environmental
disaster
PHOTOGRAPH:
TWITTER10 miles10 kmChinaHong KongYuen LongChina
liaison
office Government
district45 Shenzhen
The number
of people who
were reportedly
taken to hospital
after masked
attackers beat
protesters and
commuters
in Yuen Long
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