Hong Kong - Page 26

Protesters gathered outside Hong Kong police stations on Wednesday after chief executive Carrie Lam announced the permanent withdrawal of the controversial extradition bill that kicked off the largest demonstrations the semi-autonomous city has ever seen. The demonstrators seemed determined to signal their movement will not disperse now that the first of their five core demands has been met.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are urging the world’s governments to support them against communist Chinese aggression. Prominent activist Joshua Wong spoke in Taiwan Tuesday urging Taipei to join their efforts, while others seek support from the United States, the greater West, and countries like India.

The several groups organizing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong condemned Chief Executive Carrie Lam for taking months to announce the full withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill on Wednesday, noting that killing the bill was only one of the movement’s five demands.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced Wednesday that the government would fully withdraw the bill that launched the ongoing pro-democracy movement from the legislature, ceding to one of the five demands protesters have been posing to the government for the past three months.

The Chinese propaganda newspaper Global Times published a stunning article Tuesday that quotes Hong Kong chief executive confirming the legitimacy of audio published by Reuters in which she says she wants to resign from her post, but nonetheless declares the Reuters report is “fake.”

China has been using pornography spam accounts on Twitter to spread discord and disinformation regarding the Hong Kong protests, according to researchers from the International Cyber Policy Center.

Hong Kong police played rough again on Tuesday, charging into a crowd of student protesters and tackling one teenager with enough force to send him to the hospital.

Thousands of secondary school and college students in Hong Kong announced they would skip classes on Monday, the first day of the new school year, essentially staging a “strike” and adding their numbers to ongoing protests.

An audio recording obtained by Reuters on Monday revealed that Hong Kong’s China-appointed chief executive, Carrie Lam, wanted to resign from office, but the Communist Party did not let her.

One of many protest marches conducted during a chaotic weekend in Hong Kong was a group of Christians singing hymns and gently, but firmly, calling for democracy.

Hong Kong’s juvenile courts are stripping custody from parents of minors who have participated in pro-democracy protests, the city’s RTHK broadcaster reported this week.

Hong Kong police used pepper spray against people using the city’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and beat them with batons regardless of their participating on protests this weekend, pro-democracy leaders said, citing graphic violence on the part of police forces caught on video.

Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters filled the streets of Hong Kong island late Saturday afternoon and into the night, flouting government bans imposed against public assembly.

(AFP) — Police fired water cannon and tear gas to clear Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters from outside the city’s parliament on Saturday, as demonstrators defied a ban on rallying and the arrests of leading activists to take to the streets for a 13th straight weekend.

China’s worst nightmare may be happening: Mainland Chinese citizens are now participating in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, according to recent reports.

Hong Kong protest organizers on Thursday sarcastically invited supporters to schedule a “weekend getaway” at the international airport and give the facility a “stress test” on Sunday and Monday by blocking off the roads and overloading the railway system.

Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte backed Beijing’s use of police brutality against protesters Hong Kong on Friday, as mass pro-democracy demonstrations against China’s extradition bill enter their fifth consecutive month. 

A woman who lost her eye in a pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong and became a symbol of the movement against China accused local police on Friday of intentionally planning to “murder, mutilate and assault their very own citizens.”

China’s “People’s Armed Police” staged “large-scaled anti-riot exercises” on Thursday in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city that borders Hong Kong, a move state media dismissed as “routine.”

Hong Kong police arrested at least five high-profile democracy activists between Thursday night and Friday afternoon on various charges of participating in “separatist” activities shortly before the city enters its thirteenth week of protests.

A Hong Kong protest organizer accused masked men of attacking him and a friend Thursday with baseball bats shortly after police denied his group, the Civil Human Rights Front, a permit for this weekend’s planned protests.

The Hong Kong protest movement held a rally on Wednesday dedicated to protesting alleged sexual assaults on pro-democracy demonstrators by police officers. Organizers modeled the event after the #MeToo movement, while participants came up with their own hashtag, #ProtestToo, and began writing it on their arms with lipstick. 

The South China Morning Post reported on Thursday that parents in Shenzhen, the Chinese technology hub bordering on Hong Kong, are seeking treatment for depression and anxiety because they feel the city lacks adequate educational resources for their children at a time when China’s big tech companies are planning to ramp up hiring and transform Shenzhen into a “model city.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) is attempting to block the construction of an undersea cable linking Los Angeles to Hong Kong due to national security concerns.

After Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam made remarks on Tuesday that indicated she might invoke a law that would give her broad emergency powers to deal with the protest movement, arguments about whether such a move would save, or destroy, Hong Kong’s economy have boiled across the island and among international observers.

Chinese Communist Party head Xi Jinping, who has been keeping a relatively low profile since the protest movement in Hong Kong erupted, addressed a meeting of China’s central planning committee on Monday and called for some “improvements” that belie deep economic anxieties in Beijing.

China’s Global Times propaganda newspaper ran a column Tuesday arguing that the G7 group of economically developed nations no longer had a reason to exist, complaining that the group issued a mild statement of opposition to violence in Hong Kong.

During an interview with the Hill released on Tuesday, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated that it is unfortunate that China is moving in a “more authoritarian” direction, but “they have made more progress in addressing extreme poverty than

Chinese state-run media made much of a tiny rally held in Los Angeles on Sunday to oppose the Hong Kong protest movement and accuse it of using violence to achieve its ends.

Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday insisted the police have responded appropriately to violent behavior by protesters and vowed to “stamp out that violence through law enforcement actions,” although she added she was willing to talk with peaceable protest leaders.

ProgressUST, a student group at Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology, triggered the ire of college administrators on Monday who condemned a Facebook post by the group urging the construction of a wall between Hong Kong and China to ensure independence from communism.

It is essential for Hong Kong Catholics to continue to play a central role in the massive protests against laws that could jeopardize important freedoms, a new editorial proposes.

Hong Kong police have been accused of indiscriminately arresting bystanders and accusing them of participating in “unlawful assemblies,” in some cases holding them prisoner for days without proper access to legal counsel. 

China’s state media celebrated the “election” Sunday of pro-China politician Ho Iat Seng as the chief executive of Macau, despite Ho being the only candidate legally on the ballot and the voters being a committee of China loyalists tasked with choosing the city’s leaders.

Chinese security officers detained a group of Hong Kong university students for two days at the Mount Everest base camp in Tibet because one of them was holding a sign reading “Liberate Hong Kong.”

A freelance journalist in Hong Kong reported Sunday that police there had arrested two men “visiting from the U.S.” present at a protest attracting thousands in Tsuen Wan that day, potentially the first American citizen detentions since the protests began in June.