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Saturday 4 October 2014
Hong Kong police 'stood by' as rally attacked
Activists and rights groups say police did not
intervene to stop "thugs" attacking protesters.
Hundreds of people have again gathered in at
protest sites in Hong Kong, a day after
demonstrators calling for general suffrage were
attacked and accused police of not doing enough
to stop the violence.
Demonstrators alleged that Friday's violence was
orchestrated by paid thugs to stir up trouble and
discredit the movement.
Rights group Amnesty International also blasted
police, saying officers "stood by and did nothing"
to protect protesters, whose rallies have led to
much of the city grinding to a standstill for the
past week.
Distrust of police has built up since officers used
pepper spray and tear gas to disperse protesters
occupying government buildings earlier this week.
Police did form lines between the rival sides on
Friday, and escorted some protesters to safety,
but this was not enough to stop the violence.
Al Jazeera's Adrian Brown, reporting from the
shopping district of Mong Kok, where the worst
confrontations happened on Friday night, said the
situation there was tense on Saturday, but shops
were still open and business was going on as
usual.
"Today the confrontations have been mostly
verbal," he said. "But the skirmishes seem to ebb
and flow and most of the violence tends to
happen in the evening."
He said students had been reinforcing their
barricades in the morning, with their opponents
trying to take them down.
Talks called off
Reacting to Friday's attacks, protest leaders called
off talks promised by Hong Kong's Chief
Executive Leung Chun-ying, who is under pressure
from protesters to resign, before the dialogue
meetings had even started.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students made the
announcement to boycott the talks after crowds
descended on two of their camps on Friday,
tearing down their tents and barricades. Student
leaders said the attacks were orchestrated by
paid people from "triad" criminal gangs.
"Everybody saw what happened today," the
students said in a statement. "The government
and police turned a blind eye to violent acts by
the triads targeting peaceful Occupy protesters."
"Police in the small hours in different locations
arrested 19 males," senior superintendent Patrick
Kwok said.
"Within the people who were arrested, eight were
arrested for illegal assembly. We believe these
have triad backgrounds," Kwok said.
Triad gangs have traditionally been involved in
drug-running, prostitution and extortion but are
increasingly involved in legitimate ventures such
as property and the finance industry.
Some are believed to also have links with the
political establishment and previously there have
been allegations of triads sending paid thugs to
stir up trouble during protests.
'One-sided violence'
Geoff Crothall, the communications director at
the China Labour Bulletin, an NGO defending
workers' rights, said "whether or not these triads,
these hired thugs, were acting under the
organisation of the government or Beijing is not
really the point".
"What we need to understand is that all the
violence is coming from one direction. Journalists
and bystanders are not being attacked by pro-
democracy protesters. All the violence
comes from these anti-Occupy thugs and
hooligans," he told Al Jazeera.
Some business owners and residents have been
angered by the protests that have led to traffic
diversions and other disruptions.
"The fight for democracy does not give you the
right to occupy our streets and disturb us. We all
have a mortgage to pay and need to make a
living," a Mong Kok resident told Al Jazeera.
Crothall said some of the anti-Occupy protesters
were undoubtedly local residents annoyed with
disruptions caused by protests. But he stressed
that the atmosphere around the Mong Kok
protests site was mostly quiet and peaceful.
"There's not really a great deal of inconvenience
being cause by the pro-democracy camp. There's
clearly more to it than simply inconvenience."
Online, activists circulated videos of protesters in
vain asking police to intervene to stop attacks.
Amnesty International said female protesters
were being targeted with sexual assaults and
harassment.
"Women and girls were among those targeted,
including incidents of sexual assault, harassment
and intimidation" in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay,
another shopping district, the group said.
China rules the former British colony through a
"one country, two systems" formula underpinned
by the Basic Law, which accords Hong Kong some
autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the
mainland and has universal suffrage as an
eventual goal.
But Beijing decreed on August 31 it would vet
candidates who want to run for chief executive at
an election in 2017, angering democracy activists,
who took to the streets.
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