A spokesman for Hong Kong’s police force said during an interview Monday that protesters should consider the epithet “cockroach” a term of endearment, as cockroaches are resilient and “full of vitality.”
Hong Kong police violently subdued several protests in and around shopping malls Sunday targeting pro-China businesses, silencing both the protesters and journalists covering their activities.
The police force in Hong Kong is facing ridicule after attempting to co-opt the recent “Art Basel Banana” artwork to make light of their repeated use of tear gas against the city’s pro-democracy protesters.
Parents of students trapped at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) after a violent weekend that set a significant percentage of the campus ablaze were reportedly “begging” police to let them see their children on Monday.
A 15-year-old boy in Hong Kong is in critical condition after undergoing emergency brain surgery on Wednesday night after a blow to his head, most likely the impact of a tear gas canister fired by the police.
The campus of Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) became the focal point of the protest movement on Tuesday, degenerating into a veritable war zone as police battled protesters, flooded the grounds with tear gas, fired rubber bullets, and rolled in a water cannon truck that splattered demonstrators with blue dye.
A Hong Kong police officer was caught on video Tuesday repeatedly blasting a pregnant woman in the face with pepper spray for no apparent reason. Another police officer was suspended over a viral video from Monday that showed him deliberately ramming his motorcycle through a crowd of protesters.
Communist Chinese media on Tuesday praised the Hong Kong police for their “restraint” in dealing with “radical protesters” – even though the island is currently boiling with outrage over the death of a student and the caught-on-video shooting of a protester – and urged police to “shoot down the rioters,” with assistance from the People’s Liberation Army if necessary.
Hong Kong police fired both tear gas and live rounds at protesters on Monday. One of the protesters was hit in the chest or abdomen by a live bullet fired at point-blank range by a uniformed police officer, resulting in immediate public outrage and even more energetic protests.
Students at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) wore masks, shouted protest slogans, and waved banners before and during graduation ceremonies on Thursday.
At least 18 protesters were killed in the Iraqi city of Karbala on Tuesday morning when a unit of masked Iraqi security forces opened fire on them with live ammunition. Over 800 others were reportedly wounded in the attack.
The death toll from renewed anti-government protests in Iraq reached 75 over the weekend, doubling the number killed before the demonstrations slowed down due to a major Shiite Muslim religious holiday.
Iraqi police fired tear gas and stun grenades on Friday as protests resumed in Baghdad after three weeks of relative calm. There were also reports of live rounds being fired. The Iraqi Human Rights Commission reported 21 killed and 1779 injured in disturbances around the country.
A Hong Kong group called Netizens Organizing Police Abuse Investigation Data (NOPAID) this week published an extensive report on the excessive use of force by police against protesters.
Hong Kong saw more huge protests over the weekend, many of them explicitly directed at the new emergency law forbidding demonstrators to wear masks. Police fired at protesters in the Mong Kok district, a frequent scene of large protests.
The Hong Kong Hospital Authority on Friday confirmed that a male police officer forced his way into a maternity ward as a 19-year-old pregnant protester was disrobed for a body search.
In an interview with Breitbart News on Wednesday, Dr. Ali Akram Albayati of the Iraqi High Commission on Human Rights discussed the origins of the protests in Iraq, endorsed the right of the people to be heard, and mourned the loss of life during clashes between protesters and security forces.
The acrimonious relationship between Hong Kong protesters and police took a turn for the worse on Tuesday night when an undercover police officer disguised as a protester was caught on video behaving in a highly belligerent manner toward bystanders.
Hong Kong police shot a 14-year-old boy this weekend as protests continued across the city, growing more intense after chief executive Carrie Lam invoked long-dormant emergency powers and banned the wearing of masks in public.
The death toll from four days of widespread protests in Iraq climbed to 60 as of Friday afternoon, with a growing number of allegations that security forces are unnecessarily targeting demonstrators with lethal ammunition.
Student protester Tony Tsang Chi-kin, the first person shot by the police with live ammunition during the Hong Kong protests, was charged on Thursday with one count of rioting and two counts of assaulting the police.
Thousands of Hong Kong citizens, many of them fellow students, marched on Wednesday to support Tony Tsang Chi-kin, the 18-year-old demonstrator shot in the chest by police with live ammunition on Tuesday afternoon.
A teenage activist in Hong Kong was hospitalized after being shot by a police officer at close range on Tuesday as demonstrations gripped the city on “National Day,” the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Communist People’s Republic of China. The protesters sought to reframe the day as a “Day of Mourning” for freedoms lost.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam held the first of her promised “public dialogue” sessions at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium on Thursday.
Hong Kong police on Wednesday arrested several people demonstrating outside the police station in Mong Kok, where demonstrations have been occurring nightly since a controversially forceful August 31 raid on a railway station.
Weekend protests in Hong Kong turned into ugly street battles after sunset featuring exchanges of firebombs and tear gas between demonstrators and police.
A Hong Kong courtroom on Tuesday was packed with hundreds of supporters of three young protesters accused of rioting and assaulting police officers. The crowd outside the courtroom chanted “Fight for freedom” and “Stand with Hong Kong, while many seated in the public gallery wore the type of face masks favored by protesters.
Pro-democracy Hong Kong legislator Tanya Chan told the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Monday that an investigation of police brutality in Hong Kong is urgently needed.
Human rights groups voiced grave misgivings on Tuesday at Hong Kong’s decision to issue telescoping metal batons to police officers “for the purpose of executing constabulary duties whilst off-duty.”
A senior officer in Hong Kong’s police department said that officers used “appropriate force” in a video circulating on social media showing a protester bleeding profusely from the face while being crushed into the ground by multiple officers and emphatically stating he was not resisting arrest, the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported on Friday.
A woman only identified by the surname “Shi” told the pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily on Thursday that police pushed her down a staircase and bludgeoned her in the head for wearing a black shirt and passing through a Mass Transit Rail (MTR) station.
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 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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
A Hong Kong police officer fired at least one gunshot on Sunday night, officials confirmed, amid a chaotic scene in the city’s Tsuen Wan district in which pro-democracy protesters had begun attacking mahjong parlors they accused of ties to organized crime.
Rap superstar Cardi B went on a foul-mouthed rant Tuesday, telling the New York Police Department to “motherf**king suck a fart and suffocate on it” after it allegedly convinced a Brownsville school to cancel a giveaway hosted by her friend Star Brim.
Thousands of Hong Kong residents held a sit-in on Wednesday at the MTR railroad station in Yuen Long, where protesters were savagely attacked on July 21 by thugs linked to organized crime gangs. The demonstrators used the one-month anniversary of the attack to complain about the lack of an independent investigation of the Yuen Long incident and instances of excessive force used by the police against protesters.
