Restaurants targeted as protests spread to Hong Kong’s New Territories – The Age

Now TV showed pictures of a circular, red welt and bruise on the upper arm of one of its reporters who said she had been hit by a tear gas canister in Tsuen Wan, to the west of the New Territories, where police fired tear gas late into the evening to clear the streets.

The rail station was closed in Sha Tin amid scuffles between police and protesters young and old on a day of planned shopping centre protests throughout the territory. Shopping districts across the harbour on the main island were quiet.

Protesters daubed graffiti and damaged shops at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong and stormed shops in Tsuen Wan, police said. They made several arrests at Festival Walk where fistfights broke out and people hit each other with sticks.

The violence later spread to the Kowloon district of Mong Kok, one of the world’s most densely populated areas. Police used water cannon to try to clear the main artery of Nathan Road, which runs south to the harbour.

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Protesters are angry about what they see as police brutality and meddling by Beijing in the the freedoms guaranteed by the “one country, two systems” formula in place since the former British territory returned to Chinese in 1997.

Calls for revenge

Thousands of people gathered on a Saturday night vigil for “martyrs” after a student died in hospital this week following a fall from a building during a protest. Many called for revenge.

Seven pro-democracy city lawmakers have been detained or face arrest and are due to appear in court on Monday on charges of obstructing a May meeting of the local assembly, according to police and several of the lawmakers.

“We believe that the government together with the police, as well as the pro-establishment camp, they are trying to escalate the anger of Hong Kong people in order to cancel or even to postpone the upcoming district council election,” Tanya Chan, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said on Saturday.

One of the arrested lawmakers, Gary Fan, said the detentions were the result of “political prosecutions and judicial crackdowns” by Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam.

The elections are due on November 24

The colony of Hong Kong island and the Kowloon peninsula, acquired after two “opium wars” with China, was expanded to include the much larger, rural New Territories on a 99-year lease in 1898. Britain returned all the land to China when that lease expired in 1997.

Reuters