WHY HONG KONG’S PROTESTS TURNED VIOLENT
ON THE FIRST Saturday of October 2019, people across the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) woke to something they’re not accustomed to: nonfunctioning public transportation. As on many weekends since last June, there had been demonstrations the previous night against the Hong Kong government and the influence exerted on it by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, with the SAR government having just announced its intent to ban face masks—which protesters had been using to conceal their identities and prevent reprisals—the anti-government forces escalated.
The Mass Transit Railway (MTR)—the SAR’s renowned subway system—had been ransacked. Grocery stores and shopping centers had closed preemptively to prevent vandalism. Across the walls of the station near where I lived, one could find messages spray-painted by protesters. I took pictures, noting the sentiments: “History will absolve us”; “No turn back for HK”; “no freedom I would rather die”; and—most ominously—“If we burn You burn with us.”
Last year’s protests began as a response to the Hong Kong government’s proposed amendment to the territory’s extradition law, which would have allowed certain criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. This roused Hongkongers, accustomed to their highly regarded and politically independent judicial system, and fearing the prospect of rendition to the mainland’s much less regarded (and much less independent) system. This, they said, would be the death knell for “one country, two systems,” which allows Hong Kong to retain a number of rights, such as free speech, a free press, and a fair trial, that are largely absent on the mainland.
The protests started peacefully enough. On the weekends leading up to June 12, when a vote on the bill was scheduled, crowds sometimes exceeding 1 million participants turned out to march. But when the loyalist Hong Kong government dismissed these demonstrations and went ahead with plans to vote on the amendment, the protesters broadened both their objectives and their tactics. On June 12, a group of protesters, estimated at 40,000 strong, blocked entry into the Hong Kong Legislative Council. When they charged police barricades, the police responded with tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets. Arrests were made,
