#stand with cuhk

[eternal-bauhinian]

CUHK Emergency Update, 2130, 15/11

1400-1600: Volunteers ship residents who wish to leave out to Royal Ascot (a nearby, upper-class-ish neighbourhood)

1800: Letter sent out to remaining staff members to leave by 2100 due to 'imminent danger'

2030: I receive the damn news and pack within 40 minutes

~2110: My family and I GTFO and leave with part of the clean-up via a rarely used dirt path. I swear this is evacuation and I had to leave with school supplies and basic life stuff. Most of the students have already left at this point, so you need not fear for their lives as much as you would have to.

2130: I witness a car burning by the No. 2 Bridge. This is my first time seeing stuff happen in front of me, and not via second-hand info, excluding prior vandalism. The horrors of war…

So… yeah, this is basically CUHK's Final Stand, possibly. I fear I will never be able to return to the place I have called home all my life. #PrayForCUHK

2200 Update - My family and I are safe for now. God has blessed us.

[learning-living]

A brief summary of what happened on 11-12 Nov 2019

[eternal-bauhinian]

I live quite close to the campus of CUHK. The tear gas genuinely gave me a headache that night. My tags can direct you to the needed posts - specifically, the date and location tags. Go ahead.

AT TODAY, HK POLICE ATTACKED LOCAL UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

(source)

Just today, Hong Kong police have intruded in the campus of CUHK, shot countless amount of tear gases towards students, then followed with mass-arrests. Even the president of CUHK, got tear gased right after he tried to negotiate with the police.

In defence, students of CUHK are now fighting back against the ongoing police brutality. Not only to protect their campus, but to protect all the values of freedom and justice, as one university is deemed to express.

Moreover, the Hong Kong Internet Exchange, which is the backbone of Hong Kong's internet interaction, is located inside CUHK. No one can imagine what the police will do to the centre if they break in, since most of the protest-related communication and information are relied on the Internet.

Right now HK police have blocked down most of the main accesses to CUHK, both in and out. Students’ life are threatened for real.

THIS IS TERRORISM, A TERRORIST ATTACK OF COPS HARMING PEOPLE WHO SHARE THE SAME LAND WITH THEM.

❗️ If you are an exchange student of CUHK, please for the safety of yourself and other students, call your consulates! If you are not, still please spread the information out! For everyone’s safety!

POLICE TERRORISM MUST NOT SET ROOT ON THE CAMPUS FOR FREEDOM! #STANDWITHHK !

[deweycc]

This is not a battlefield, the place where all the smoke coming from is the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The police said there are rioters hiding in the campus and tried to get in and search the whole university, the students resisted since the police does not have search warrant, so the police keep bombarding them with teargas.

After negotiation, the police agreed to back down, but then they started to bombard with more teargas and rubber bullets, then rushed into the campus and arrested students.

[dystopianflowerhk]

11.11-12 Dawn of revenge I

“It’s merely coincidence he is not your child.”

Chow Tsz-lok’s death was a blow and resentment for Hong Kong people, and also a great warning. The city is filled with horror, even if you’re not a protester, if you appeared at the wrong time or wrong place, you may face tear gas, pepper spray, police brutality and abuse, or even injuries and death.

Nov 11, protesters organized a premature strike, went on the street to rally and block the roads. Police used tear gas rounds and bullets to deal with protesters. Facing excessive police violence, protesters built roadblocks and threw Molotov cocktails. Eggs versus a high wall, eggs are always the side which faces damage.

In Sai Wan Ho, a traffic police captured a boy, and shot another boy who came to rescue his companion without carrying any weapon or shield. The live bullet penetrated the boy’s kidney and liver. The traffic police also shot another boy.

In Tsuen Wan, a boy was discovered lying on the pavement, apparently having fallen to his death, his arm broken and twisted as seen in a photo.

Nov 12, Chinese University of Hong Kong became a battlefield, where protesters and police clashed fiercely. Police broke into the campus to arrest protesters, protesters built large covers and trebuchet for defense. The police used over 1500 tear gas rounds and 1300 rubber bullets. The president of the university tried to negotiate with the police, but attacked by tear gas instead.

My university also suffered tear gas near the resident hall area. That should have been a place for local and overseas students to live and rest, the students there did not pose threats to police and citizens. We were concerned about the safety of our friends and professors who was living there. And now, even our last safe haven is scarred. It feels like we have nowhere to go anymore.

One thing that I didn’t thought of, is that universities have been a sacred place of knowledge, wisdom, virtues and civilization. Even troops in WWII did not dare to attack universities. Protesters and students did resist in the university campus and throw things out to protect themselves, but it was the police who broke in the campus and induced large area damages.

At the same time, universities each announced the cancellation of graduation ceremonies. The ridiculous tragedy of students born in 1997 repeated again. I thought I could have finished university life with a happy ending this time, but I don’t even have the mood to celebrate anymore. Well then, if this is our fate, forever woven with the ups and downs of Hong Kong, I am willing to abandon so-called happy ending, and mark our journey with rebellion.

[ratselttilelkniwt]

Stand With Hong Kong

Yesterday the Hong Kong police stormed into the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Who gave them the right to go into an university campus and cause a chaos like that? What for? What were they trying to do? Of course there were students at the university. They were not rioting and doing anything illegal. It is an university campus. It should not be a battlefield. The university students have been fighting so hard and putting their lives at risk to protect their school and home. They are still on guard at the moment. Many students were injured and some were arrested last night. For numerous times the police promised to retreat but they still fired at the students. Even the headmaster went there and tried to make a deal with the police. But the police broke their promise and fired relentlessly. Even the headmaster was unable to protect his students from the police. The police even fired tear gas when the headmaster was still present at the site. How could the police disrespect an university headmaster like that? How could they disrespect an university like that? CUHK was among the world’s top universities. How could anyone let that happen? How could the world condone that? Last night was a total nightmare. It seemed like no one could stop the police. Not even the headmaster. Not even the former headmaster who also went to the site. Meanwhile our chief executive Carrie Lam had so much fun at a dinner event last night. And it was not only CUHK. Other universities were under attack as well. The police fired tear gas at PolyU few days ago.

[mtstapestry]

History repeats itself: 1989 vs 2019

Please save Hong Kong, as Hongkongers are now facing serious police violence🆘

Synthesis of Police Violence in 11/11

SaiWanHo: shooting two people with live bullets; Tear Gas (TG) Buffet; pepper-spraying civilians; aiming the upper floors of buildings with gun; breaking into the Holy Cross Church to arrest people

CUHK: TG Buffet; driving a car to hit the crowd; leaving plenty of cartridges, as at least 2 students got shot by sponge grenades, and firing bean bag rounds

TungChung: reported to have live bullets fired

ShaTin: RP fired live bullets in Hilton Plaza; STS entered the CPC’s Railway station

KwaiFong: driving a motorcycle to hit people; pointing the pedestrians on the overpass with a gun

MongKok: firing live bullet(s)

SheungShui: a person got shot at eye; TG Buffet in the city hall; TG on the overpass

HKPU: breaking in the campus; TG Buffet; student got shot by bean bag round;

HKU: breaking in the campus; threatening people with gun; firing TG

YuenLong: burning plastics nearby the Pak Kau College

ChoiHung: TG Buffet; firing rubber bullets to disperse the civilians; 2 gunshots were heard

WongTaiSin: threatening people with gun and complaining insufficiency of live bullets fired in Sai Wan Ho; after the two daughters of that police firing in Sai Wan Ho left the school, police fired TG inside the campus

Tate’s Cairn Tunnel: setting fire

KwunTong: arresting candidate; beating up a girl having no resistance

TseungKwanO: TG Buffet in kindergarten and elementary school; aiming civilians with a shotgun; pepper-spraying in market

HungHom: firing TG into a bus

Central: TG Buffet; firing rubber bullets and bean bag rounds

TaiPo: TG Buffet

TinShuiWai: TG Buffet

There are also enormous RP on alert with TG and guns in all the other districts

Blue Ribbon’s Conor

Clapping to appreciate the police’s shooting people, right after the shot in Sai Wan Ho

Pouring strong acid from the building to a high school student in Kwai Fong

A middle-aged male attacked civilians with a knife in Ngau Chi Wan

Bros&Sisses setting up the Road Blocks in Mong Kok were snitched

An outraged male teacher in Buddhist Sin Tak College exerted violence to a student

[daydreamerballerina]

12.11.2019

Police using excessive force to attack the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tear gas, water canon and guns. The students are just trying to protect their second home, where they pursue their dreams. University is not supposed to be treated like this, it’s sacred. It’s where the futures are nurtured.

[eternal-bauhinian]

FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

STAND WITH HONG KONG CUHK

THIS IS OUR FINAL STAND. IF WE WIN, IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END. IF WE LOSE, HONG KONG FALLS. THIS CITY'S FATE RESTS ON OUR SHOULDERS.

I suppose this is the time for me to step up and be an actual war reporter, if the fighting comes to my backyard - it's possible.

HONG KONG UPDATE 12 NOV 2019 1954-2113

This is a freaking uncanny similarity to this piece of art made months ago.

1958: A vice-principal is staying on the frontlines with the students.

1954: Police fire tear gas while CUHK University President Rocky Tuan still talking to students, Tuan retreats and heads to police station to check on arrested students. Police fired tear gas first, before the students return Molotov cocktails in response to the attack.

2010: Students build barricades and set debris on fire to stop police advance.

2018: Tear gas again, journo reportedly hit by projectile.

2019: Nonstop tear gas and bullets from police for more than past 45 minutes.

2031: Someone reportedly suffered burns on back, now taken away and being treated.

2036: Nonstop tear gas and bullets from police for more than past 40 minutes.

2036: Graduates and students deliver supplies, motorbike drivers giving first aiders and press rides.

2039: Many injured, being carried away one after another.

2050: Large number of injuries, some need ambulance. An area is designated as a temporary hospital for first aiders to work in.

2059: Private cars now teaming up as roadblocks at roads connecting to CUHK to prevent potential police advance.

2113: Student reportedly hit on head by projectile, fell to ground, unconscious (RTHK).

[eternal-bauhinian]

Mongkok Graffiti, ~1900, 29/11/2019

As I made my way downtown (in Mongkok), I noted how the words graffitied on the bridge, the walls, the roads (pavement and asphalt) grew.

There were, of course, the classics like 「五大訴求 缺一不可」 ("5 demands, not 1 less") and 「天滅中共」 ("(May) Heaven Destroy the CCP")

But then there were new ones. These three stood out most to me.

「血債血償」: "Debt of blood (are to be) repaid with blood". Both times I saw it, it was written in angry red. Oof. People have been getting vengeful and been out for blood since Alex Chow died (RIP) and even made the evolved 「香港人反抗」, "Hongkongers, resist" (which itself was evolved from 「香港人加油」, "Hongkongers, add oil") become 「香港人報仇」, "Hongkongers, avenge". This line may be a follow-up behind 「殺人填命」, "murderers must pay with their lives" (rough translation), but I've seen it as a standalone as well.

「還我正常空氣」: "Return me (my) normal air". 99.9% chance they are talking about the tear gas and how it is toxic and affects the ordinary folk living around town - the stuff reportedly choked several pet hamsters to death some weeks ago! (RIP hamsters, press F to pay respects.) I also noticed that the air quality around the city has worsened these days, overall.

「721 831 101 1111」: Refers to four dates where the movement has seen 'breakthrough' - the 7/21 Triad Attack in Yuen Long, the 8/31 Police Attack in Prince Edward CTR station, the time a cop shot a teenager on 10/1 in Tsuen Wan, and the beginning of the University Sieges on 11/11. The first two have been shouted as part of a slogan since September, and the third added in October - 「七二一 唔見人 / 八三一 打死人 / 十月一 槍殺人」, i.e. "7/21 (Popo) are missing, 8/31 (Popo) Beat People to Death, 10/1 (Popo) Use Gun to Kill People". Looks like we have to add another to the list - 「四條一 又射人」, i.e. "11/11 (Popo) Shoot People Again". (I know it's not all that catchy lmao)

The rest mainly involve the words 'revolution' and ones condemning the government and police for authoritarianism and violence.

Most of this graffiti, I see on the floors and roads, sometimes along crosswalk stripes. Quite a few are found along Nathan Road, for fairly obvious reasons (many confrontations there last week).

I was unable to capture any pictures since I was with my family and in a hurry, and I would like to apologize for that, as you can't see the real deal… but just going to Mongkok station's Exit E1 and turning back from Langham Place to Nathan Road will do just fine, if you want to see it with your own eyes.

[learning-living]

[savinghongkong]

Hong Kong Is Still Waiting for Its Feminist Uprising

"Standing in front of the crowd gathered in an auditorium at the Chinese University of Hong Kong last October, Sonia Ng removed the black mask shielding her face. She and her fellow CUHK students had come to this town hall meeting with school administrators to demand more support for classmates arrested during ongoing citywide protests; Ng had stepped up to recount her own arrest, which had happened at the end of August. “Did you know that when we’re arrested, the police confiscate our phones and switch them off? Did you know that they swear at us, force us to go wherever they want?” she said, her voice breaking as she addressed the school’s vice chancellor. “If they want us to enter a dark room, we do; if they want us to take off our clothes, we do.… Did you know that the room in San Uk Ling Holding Centre where they did body searches on us was pitch black? Did you know that I’m far from the only victim of sexual violence committed by the police? Did you know that other arrestees were sexually assaulted and tortured by multiple officers, regardless of gender?” "The Hong Kong protests that began last summer have been rife with accusations of emotional and physical abuse against women. In addition to allegations of police assaulting detained protesters, there have been reports of activists and journalists receiving rape threats and being doxxed by trolls. Women have recounted enduring humiliating and unnecessary strip searches by police; footage emerged of police ripping off a protester’s skirt and exposing her underwear during arrest. One teenager alleged that she was gang-raped by police officers and had to have an abortion. A journalist for NBC said that after one cop grabbed her breast, she attempted to find out his ID number from other officers—who responded by pepper-spraying her in the face. The anti-protest side has attempted to use women’s sexuality to discredit the movement—such as when Fanny Law, a member of Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam’s cabinet, claimed that young women were offering sex to male protesters. But women on the government’s side are not immune, either: In January, a woman police officer whose image had gone viral spoke out against the force’s culture of sexual harassment in a series of Instagram posts, saying that male colleagues were spreading rumors about her and making it difficult for her to do her job." "Amid city-wide criticism of police brutality and misconduct, the issues that have come to light during the protests have triggered a wider exploration of the status and treatment of women and other marginalized groups in Hong Kong. Last August, thousands marched under the rallying cry #ProtestToo to support victims of sexual harassment and violence. These discussions could be lighting a tentative feminist flame, in a society that has shied away from confrontations with gender inequality." "The feminist fight has roots far deeper than this current conflict. It is crucial for all Hong Kongers to confront how we, too, could be perpetuating injustice. Women protesters have been called “brave fighters” or held up as figureheads, but this idealization still ties women’s worth to sacrifice. It doesn’t get us any closer to real equality. We need to ask ourselves what kind of revolution we are waging, and who gets to have a say in the Hong Kong we are fighting to reclaim." Credit to the source

[hkstreetart]

Journalism graduates at CUHK "First line: we are not afraid of their guns but they are afraid of our cameras" Second line: "Fearless of guns and bullets to stand for the truth". @cuhk_studentpress @thechineseuniversityofhongkong . #hongkongprotests #antielab #hkgraffiti #hkstreetart #carrielam #discoverhongkong #protestart #fivedemands #carrielamstepdown #standwithhongkong #standwithhk #freedomhk #politicalart #cuhk #press #nt #newterritories — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/2CszusW

[deweycc]

[bountyofbeads]

Hong Kong Protests: How Does This End? https://nyti.ms/2rSYDLn

Hong Kong Protests: How Does This End?

A bill before Congress would put the United States squarely on the side of the protesters, even as the demonstrations seem to spin out of control.

By The Editorial Board | Published Nov. 16, 2019 | New York Times | Posted November 17, 2019 |

After nearly six months of escalating protests, Hong Kong is a mess, its reputation for efficiency in tatters, its economy in recession, its roads and rails often blocked. And there is no end in sight.

That poses a quandary for those who admire and support the protest movement, but who recoil at the notion of such a unique and vibrant enclave self-destructing. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the movement has no leadership, no coordinating committee to advise, to cheer or to warn.

In the end, however, there is no choice for those who cherish freedom but to support the protests, as a bill pending in the United States Congress does. The protests may be counterproductive, destructive, leaderless and even futile, but for these same reasons they are an altruistic, self-sacrificing and genuine demonstration that people who have known freedom, even in a limited form, refuse to surrender it.

It is doubtful that Xi Jinping, the authoritarian Chinese leader, understands the resistance or the longing. Those who rise to the pinnacle of a secretive, authoritarian, coercive system like China’s are molded to believe that you can control all the people all the time, if you can only find the right combination of sticks, carrots, lies and information filters. To them, any dissent must be a political plot hatched in dark foreign corners.

What Mr. Xi does instinctively understand is the threat posed by Hong Kong while he is waging a global propaganda offensive, backed by the lure of China’s enormous market. A Tiananmen-style crackdown, he knows, would be disastrous for China’s standing and image. But letting the protesters have their way, he believes, would show weakness and potentially encourage repressed minorities in China, such as the Uighurs, Kazakhs or Tibetans, to push for their rights.

Lacking any means for winning the Hong Kongers’ hearts or minds and unable to give in to their demands, leaders in Beijing and their loyalists in Hong Kong, including the administration led by Carrie Lam, see no alternative to exerting ever greater police force. And that serves only to further inflame the demonstrators.

Foreign governments, too, confront a dilemma. On the commercial side, overt support for the protests could lead to a loss of Chinese business. President Trump, for one, has stayed largely silent on the latest protests, even while grappling with Mr. Xi on trade, evidently seeking not to trammel the chance of a deal. There is also the problem of supporting demonstrations in which protesters have sometimes resorted to violence, even if police violence has been far greater and more systematic. Nothing justifies setting an opponent on fire, as one protester apparently did.

These incidents of violence must be noted and condemned. But they are inevitable in confrontations with police that have been escalating over many weeks. One thing remains incontestable: In this protracted and painful confrontation, the people of Hong Kong hold the moral high ground in their determination to decide their own fate and to reject the animal farm that China would put them in even before the transition to full Chinese control in 2047, the date established in the agreement that ended Britain’s control over its former colony.

There is no way to predict how long the protests will continue, or what will be their outcome. But the people of Hong Kong deserve support, and Mr. Xi should be left with no doubt that violent intervention will carry an immediate and heavy price.

The bill before Congress, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which accuses the Chinese government of creating more chaos and warns of new sanctions, has the support of both parties, and should be brought to a vote without further delay. Painful as it is to observe, this is a struggle that the free world must support.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

Can Hong Kong’s Courts Save the City?

Don’t count on it.

By Audrey Eu Yuet-mee, Ms. Eu is a barrister and former legislator in Hong Kong. | Published Nov. 16, 2019 | New York Times | Posted Nov 17, 2019 |

HONG KONG — It both comforts and depresses me, as a lawyer who has practiced for four decades, that every day over the past few months I have been besieged on Facebook by anxious Hong Kongers urging me to take legal action to help protesters.

I have been asked to demand investigations into mysterious deaths, allegations that people have been raped while in police custody and claims that police officers have been impersonating protesters. Some people seek redress for police brutality. Others want to pre-empt the routine use of tear gas in crowded public transportation, old people’s homes, shopping malls, universities or the central business district.

That people come to me is comforting: It suggests that even though the government and the Legislative Council have failed us, Hong Kongers still believe in our judges. It is depressing because I fear that they will be disappointed.

Initiating litigation against the government, particularly in very political cases, is an uncertain and very expensive endeavor at any time. The government has unlimited money — the taxpayers’ money — to hire a large legal team, and so even if it loses a case in the first instance, it can appeal it all the way to the final court. You, the citizen, might have found lawyers to represent you for free, but should you lose, you may have to foot the government’s legal bill — in some cases, risking bankruptcy.

The odds are also stacked against you. Judges are conservative by nature and trained to give the establishment a wide margin of appreciation. They are not the ones fighting protesters on the streets; they are not the ones making the tough political decisions. They should be slow to criticize those in the hot seat for getting something wrong.

More ominous, in 2014, the Chinese State Council issued a white paper about governance in Hong Kong, which required, among other things, the city’s judges to be “patriots.” Way back in the summer of 2008, Xi Jinping — then China’s vice-president, now its president — called on the three branches of government in Hong Kong to “cooperate.”

For China’s leaders, law is a political weapon; they routinely refer to governing the nation “in accordance with the law.” This may sound like the same thing as “the rule of law,” but it is nothing like that: It merely justifies the rule of those in power and ensures that they are above the law.

If judges in Hong Kong issue a decision with political consequences that the Chinese authorities deem unwelcome, it can always be overruled by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, which is vested with the ultimate authority to interpret Hong Kong’s Basic Law, or mini-constitution. Let us not underestimate the tremendous pressure many of our judges have faced dealing with the highly sensitive and politically charged cases that have come to them in recent years.

Earlier this week, the police and anti-riot squads attacked the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, firing hundreds of cans of tear gas and rubber bullets, and spraying parts of the campus with a toxic blue liquid. By Tuesday night, the university gym had been turned into a makeshift hospital, as though on a wartime battlefield. Joseph Sung Jao-yiu, a former vice chancellor of CUHK and a gastroenterologist, came with a team of doctors to help treat the injured — more than 110 people.

The police did have reason to take action that day: The CUHK campus is connected to a public footbridge that hangs over a major highway, and the footbridge was occupied by protesters who were throwing bricks and petrol bombs, blocking traffic and endangering the public.

Whatever the protesters were doing did not justify the authorities’ disproportionate response, however. Even CUHK’s current vice chancellor, Prof. Rocky Tuan, wasn’t spared being tear-gassed: He tried to defuse the situation with the police, but was told that he could not control his students and now was no time to negotiate. The clashes lasted for hours. Black mushroom clouds hung high above the campus and could be seen from a great distance.

Late Tuesday night, at the height of the confrontation, I was approached by Jacky So Tsun-fung, the president of the CUHK student union. He wanted to apply for an urgent injunction to stop the police from breaching the campus without a warrant and bar the use of crowd-control weapons without the assent of university authorities. Some students had become very emotional; word was circulating that one of them (and perhaps more) was considering suicide. But the judge declined to hear the application that night and wanted the police to be notified.

I met Mr. So the next morning. He has a shy, boyish face, delicate features and a mat of hair like a K-pop idol. The first thing I did was give him a big hug. His shoulders felt too small for the large burden he was carrying. I don’t mean just the burden of litigation; I mean the burden of being young in Hong Kong these days and daring to stand up or speak out. Young people are targeted, stalked and at risk of physical attack. Even secondary-school students in uniform have been stopped on their way to school, searched and harassed by the police.

There is no denying that violence has been committed by the protesters, too. But during our hearing on Wednesday, while the police’s lawyers wouldn’t tell the court how many tear-gas canisters officers had used at CUHK, they were quick to say how many petrol bombs had been thrown at them.

Never mind, apparently, my argument that at times as difficult as these, there is all the more reason to hold authorities accountable for any abuse of power. And that we, the public, are looking to the courts as our last safeguards. The judge dismissed our application.

And yet the Hong Kong courts have readily granted the police sweeping injunctions. There was one last month, cast in broad and vague terms, that barred anyone from “unlawfully and willfully” disclosing the personal information of police officers or their relatives. Naturally, no one was there to argue against the measure: Why did the court find it necessary to enjoin putative and nameless defendants from breaking the law?

Also last month, the government issued a regulation banning face masks at gatherings. Even as it insisted that Hong Kong was not in a state of emergency, the administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam ordered the mask ban by invoking outdated, colonial-era emergency legislation — paving the way for more draconian measures in the future. Several legislators have challenged the regulation in court. A ruling is expected Monday.

Whatever the outcome of that case, it would be naïve at this stage to think that a few lawyers and judges can defend the rule of law in Hong Kong. Once the city’s pride, the rule of law cannot survive under the pressure of a government that does not respect fair play, freedom or democracy.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

Hong Kong Protests: Activists Clash With Police Near Besieged Campus

The multiday siege escalated on Sunday, a day after unarmed Chinese soldiers stirred fears by staging a choreographed photo op.

By Mike Ives, Tiffany May and Katherine LI | Published Nov. 17, 2019 Updated 9:50 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted November 17, 2019 |

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong police on Sunday clashed for hours with antigovernment activists who were staging a siege-like occupation of a university campus and blocking an adjacent cross-harbor tunnel, the latest escalation in a monthslong crisis gripping the city.

The standoff on the fringes of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in which a police officer was hit in his leg with an arrow, shattered a fragile calm that had returned to the Chinese territory after a workweek marred by severe transit disruptions and street violence.

Schools across Hong Kong were canceled for Monday. And on Sunday evening — after protesters set fire to two bridges near the harbor tunnel and police officers appeared to surround them — the force threatened to use “lethal force” to arrest those who did not surrender.

The Hong Kong protests began in June over legislation, since scrapped, that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, and have expanded to include a broad range of demands for police accountability and greater democracy.

Here’s the latest.

A FIERY CAMPUS STANDOFF

The police on Sunday fired gas and sprayed water cannons at young demonstrators who were continuing a multiday occupation of Hong Kong Polytechnic University and blockading an adjacent tunnel that connects Hong Kong Island with the Kowloon Peninsula.

Ensconced above the Kowloon streets in fort-like enclosures, some of the protesters spent hours throwing gasoline bombs, some from improvised catapults. Others were armed with bows and arrows, and the police said an officer had been hit in the calf with an arrow.

After nightfall, the protesters set fire to a flyover near the tunnel and a pedestrian bridge leading to the campus, forcing an armored police vehicle to retreat and setting another on fire. A riot police officer warned that protesters were surrounded and that the force would use lethal force against them if they did not surrender.

“Time is running out,” the officer said on a loudspeaker.

Dozens of hard-line protesters also clashed with riot police in Mong Kok, a working-class neighborhood, apparently to divert the force’s energies away from the campus.

The PolyU campus, which sits beside the harbor tunnel and a Chinese military barracks, is one of several that young protesters had occupied days earlier, turning them into quasi-militarized citadels. Most of the other sieges gradually tapered off.

The Sunday clash came on the heels of a particularly intense week of transit delays, street scuffles and flash-mob-style demonstrations across the city. The unrest was prompted in part by the police shooting of a young demonstrator at point-blank range. He survived.

A RARE PROPAGANDA STUNT

On Saturday, Chinese soldiers jogged out of their barracks near Hong Kong Baptist University and cleared bricks from streets that had been swarmed days earlier by young demonstrators.

The soldiers wore T-shirts and basketball jerseys, rather than military uniforms, and carried brooms instead of weapons. Their appearance threatened to inflame tensions in the semiautonomous Chinese territory, where many are deeply sensitive about what they see as Beijing’s growing influence over their lives.

The Hong Kong garrison of the People’s Liberation Army is based in 19 sites once occupied by the British military before the former colony returned to Chinese control in 1997. But even though Chinese troops have been stationed in Hong Kong for years, it is highly unusual for them to venture into the city.

Hong Kong’s mini-Constitution says that P.L.A. forces “shall not interfere” in local affairs and that the local government may ask for the army’s assistance for disaster relief and maintaining public order. The Hong Kong government said in a statement on Saturday that the soldiers’ cleanup had been a self-initiated “community activity.”

The cleanup, which was lauded in China’s state-run news media, prompted a torrent of criticism from local residents. On Saturday, 24 lawmakers from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy legislative minority issued a joint statement saying that the local government and the P.L.A. had ignored restrictions imposed on the troops by local laws.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

[eternal-bauhinian]

I was born post-1997, not long after the SARS outbreak, to be precise.

I remember unintentionally rooting for rubbish politicians on TV to win the Chief Executive elections because I was a young and naïve child.

I was a primary student when I first heard of the Umbrella Movement. I remember seeing the Dark Corner Beating on TV vaguely. I had no idea what it entailed back then, but hey, I knew a Blue Ribbon classmate whose parent was a cop.

I am a secondary student as I witness the decline of our city into chaos, and I self-teach myself to write political satire, though rather blatant.

I was once a child who thought I had a bright future. Now I am a hardened teenager with every reason to join the fight for freedom, to make our final stand.

If this is my final post, I'll say it one (potential) last time - f**k the government. Glory to Hong Kong.

HONG KONG UPDATE 13 NOV 2019

Operation First Light

Pls pls pls read the thread featured below. Gives great insight into the psyche of HK citizens esp the youth who are a major force of the protests.

Post to be consumed with: