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Clashes as Hong Kong protesters don Halloween masks
HONG KONG, Oct 31, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Hong Kong democracy activists donned
Halloween masks lampooning the city’s pro-Beijing leaders on Thursday,
defying an emergency law that bans face coverings and sparking renewed
clashes with police.
Online forums used to organise the largely leaderless movement encouraged
supporters to wear Halloween-themed masks as police warned they would force
revellers to remove outfits and facepaint if they engaged in protests.
Small flashmob rallies broke out in multiple locations on Thursday
evening.
The new protests come as official figures released Thursday showed the
city has plunged into a technical recession for the first time since the
global financial crisis over a decade ago.
At Victoria Park, around a hundred protesters gathered for an unsanctioned
march to a popular nightclub district that had been surrounded by riot
police.
Many wore outfits poking fun at the city’s leadership.
Yan Lee, an accountant in her 50s, wore a mask that combined the face of
justice secretary Theresa Cheng with the Disney villain Maleficent.
“For months she has done nothing for Hong Kong but defend the
authorities,” she told AFP.
Another protester, who gave her surname as Loo, had painted her face in
the style of Batman’s nemesis, The Joker.
She said she was inspired by the recent Hollywood film that traces The
Joker’s origin story as he launches a revolution against Gotham City’s
elites.
“The idea that everyone owns the spirit to fight touched me a lot,” she
said.
Across the harbour in Prince Edward district, the protests had a more
familiar and less satirical feel, with police firing tear gas and chasing
hardcore protesters who had taken over roads.
Activists were marking two months since police were filmed beating
protesters in Prince Edward subway station, one of multiple incidents this
summer that have fanned hostility towards the force.
– Legal challenge to mask ban –
Hong Kong has been upended by nearly five months of huge, often violent,
pro-democracy protests in which participants routinely use masks to hide
their identities and protect themselves from teargas and pepper spray.
Earlier this month city leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era legislation
for the first time in more than fifty years to outlaw face coverings at
rallies.
The move was seen as a watershed legal moment for the city since its 1997
return by Britain to China — but the ban has done little to stop the
protests or dissuade people from wearing masks.
Police released a video on Facebook warning protesters not to use
Halloween as an excuse to hold rallies, and vowed to arrest people who
refused to remove their masks when requested to do so.
Earlier on Thursday, activists went to court to challenge the emergency
law.
“This is a duel between the rule of law and totalitarianism,” lawmaker
Dennis Kwok told reporters outside the High Court at the start of a two-day
hearing.
The sweeping 1922 emergency law was passed by then colonial master Britain
to deal with striking workers and allows the city’s leader to make “any
regulations whatsoever” in a time of emergency or public danger.
It was last used in 1967 by the British to help suppress Maoist-backed
leftist riots that raged for nearly a year and killed some 50 people.
Lam’s use of the law was controversial because it bypassed the Legislative
Council, the partially-elected chamber that approves Hong Kong’s laws.
Critics said the move undermined the city’s reputation for being a
dependable business and legal hub at a time of growing concern over Beijing’s
control of the city.
– Reputation hammered –
The protests were initially sparked by a now-abandoned plan to allow
extraditions to the authoritarian mainland. But they snowballed into a wider
democracy and police accountability movement.
Increasingly violent clashes have broken out between hardcore protesters
throwing petrol bombs and bricks at police who are responding with ever
increasing amounts of tear gas and rubber bullets.
The clashes have hammered the city’s once-solid reputation for stability
and has further battered an economy that was already reeling from the US-
China trade war.
Lam and Beijing have shown little appetite to meet protester demands, or
to offer a political solution.
Instead they have opted to wait out a movement that has remained
stubbornly resilient and appears to maintain significant public support
despite the economic hardship.
On Thursday evening China’s Communist Party elite concluded a key meeting
in Beijing with a promise to protect the “stability” of Hong Kong without
giving concrete details.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1916HRS