An elderly man armed with a meat cleaver confronted protesters who were attempting to barricade a street in Hong Kong around midnight on Wednesday, leading to a bloody brawl in which the old man was kicked and beaten with sticks.
The strange clash was described by Coconuts Hong Kong on Thursday:
According to HK01, eyewitnesses in Wong Tai Sin said that an elderly man had been waving a meat cleaver at protesters who had put up barricades on Lung Cheung Road around midnight. In a video uploaded by the blog Passion Times and apparently taken after the initial confrontation, the man can be seen with blood running down his face and becoming increasingly agitated.
Others can be heard telling him to sit down as he paces up and down the road then appears to lash out at a nearby protester.
The man then topples over, at which point masked protesters set upon him, beating him with sticks and kicking him in the torso and head as he lies on the ground.
The man was treated on the scene by first aid volunteers and then taken to hospital by ambulance.
Angry older men wielding meat cleavers are an occasional sideshow attraction in the Hong Kong protests. In early September such an individual attacked several protesters with a cleaver and stabbed a woman thought to have been his wife in the stomach when she tried to stop him. The man claimed he slashed the protesters to defend himself.
Meat cleavers have occasionally been used by supporters of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments to destroy protest displays, especially the Post It-covered “Lennon walls” they are fond of erecting.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.