What a bullshit. My facebook feed is full of HK friends debating the current political situation. Ever read the South China Morning Post? You should. A quality newspaper from HK which has no problem at all to call out the government or the rioters. Pretty hard to find an as unbiased quality newspaper in Europe. (Fun fact: Owned by a mainland Chinese... who does not seem to have any urge to make them write the way Beijing probably would want them to)



There is more freedom of speech in HK than in many European countries. You seem to project your Eastern European experiences on China that could not be further from reality.

I'm from Hong Kong and here's my two cents:

The protest is no longer just about the extradiction bill, but requesting the conduct of independent inquiry into police brutality and to implement genuine universal suffrage for both the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive.

The police has been using excessive and disproportionate force against protestors, even in peaceful protests, it's been recorded by live reporters that the police had many times planted weapons into protestor's backpacks during the arrests and keep beating them up even they were already surrendered and not attempting to move or escape at all on the ground. They've been using tear gas indoors which is violating international safety guidelines. On 21st July a bunch of gang members attack innocent commuters in Yuen Long train station, people called the police and got hung up on, people even show up in police stations and they shut their door on them.

If you google you see more and more of these incidents.

I am against violent protests myself, but it makes me really angry as well that the police keep finding excuses to deny all the accusations and keep justifying their brutality. And Carrie Lam till now still refuse to conduct independent inquiry. Why afraid to do so if the police did nothing wrong? If she truely wants hong kong to be normal again, she should listen to the demands and settle people's grievance instead of making it worse with the anti-mask law and banning peaceful protests.

Something recent, 11th November:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syn8x9h8kkQ

begin from 0:30

The "protester" has no weapon and not attacking the police at all, but got shot with real bullet. When riot police came (1:10), the guy who got shot clearly already lost consciousness, only an idiot will pull him up with one hand, he could lose even more blood and die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ga7xU2-Qk0

this is a video of the police replacing a plastic rod with a metal rod. After the protestor got shot to the ground. Later on the police claim the gun shot was self defense as the protestor was carrying dangerous weapon.

I do not think this is universal standard of police conduct.

Whatever you say, there are certainly situation where police could have handled it better. But considerating the overall scale of the situation (and comparing it with numbers of injured/death people in other countries on similar situations) the Police is handling it extremely carefully.

Picking a few videos from isolated situations without context and adding whatever you want, and showing them as "evidence" won't really go well with more informed people, that's what I can assure you. Shall I answer with tons of videos where rioters burn down stuff, attack people, assault mandarin-speaking (and nothing else) visitors etc.? I really hope we don't have to go to such level since it doesn't get us anywhere.

Yes, some of the violent rioters got injured, but then since the event you claim, a 70-year old elderly person got brutally murdered by a rioter when there was a "stop the violence" demonstration from true, local Hong Konger (most HKG people clearly understand whats going on and have enough of the riots and silly, way overbording demands from them) - he wasn't even part of it, simply walking by.

We've seen violence by the rioters against people speaking Mandarin. Only for that..

We've seen shops attacked because they refused to support the rioters with "free stuff" (called Mafia in other countries..)

Your view onto the situation seems to be very one-sided.

What happened in Barcelona recently, and happens ongoing? What happens in Turkey, in Russia, what happened in Paris a few years ago (Banlieu), and recently with the yellow vests?

I can tell you what: The Police in HKG handled it better than each and every of those countries/cities police. Despite the brutality by the rioters, the police only had a few cases where they overboarded.

Police men and women are people. Honest, hard working people.

The rioters throw gobblestones and molotov cocktails at those people trying to uphold the law.

Guess which side I'll take?

PS: I think it's against forum rules to post 3x in a row, if you want to add something to your posting, better use the edit function.

-Attacking people just for speaking manadrin.. source? context? were they picking up fights?

-70yr old guy, there are videos and not sure if the guy's been attacked by rioter or the pro-government people yet

-Shops were attacked because they are china owned/ owned by north point triad members/ tell lies to smear protestors, most shops didnt give free stuff to protestors, and they're fine

All I'm saying is, if you also agree they as police force, well trained, went overboard, then there should be independent inquiry investigating everyone because everyone should be held responsible to their actions.

sorry for posting three times in a role i'll use the edit function from now on.

I agree. I think there are cultural factors which amplify the effect for HK, but in the end, I think it is the same thread which has lead to: yellow jackets, trump, brexit, etc.

Middle classes are being squeezed, people feel that QoL and opportunities available to previous generations are not available to them. Personally, I think this can all be traced back to the current extraordinary loose monetary policy around the world which has resulted in greater division between the rich and the 'poor'. I think the linked exchange rate system plus the low US rates is one of the more exteme cases and has had the HK economy running too hot for far too long.

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https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion...ercurrents-its

Hong Kong’s hatred of mainlanders feeds the xenophobic undercurrents of its protests

Resentment of Beijing has spilled over towards mainlanders, Mandarin speakers and mainland-linked businesses. Shops are trashed, people are attacked and xenophobic slurs are becoming common. Hong Kong is succumbing to a wave of hate crime

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...agency-offices

Local media showed scenes of a fire in the lobby of Xinhua’s office in Wan Chai district, broken windows and graffiti sprayed on a wall. It was unclear if there were people in the building.

Police fired teargas rounds and used a water cannon to break up a rally on Saturday after some protesters threw petrol bombs at them.

https://www.economist.com/china/2019...d-in-hong-kong

Huang Qixuan, a 21-year-old from mainland China who is studying accountancy in Hong Kong, was walking through his campus, talking to his father by phone. He passed a black-clad local student who was holding a placard in support of the pro-democracy unrest that has racked the city for nearly five months. “It’s chaotic,” he said to his father in Mandarin, the mainland’s common tongue. Incensed, the local shouted into Mr Huang’s face in Cantonese, the language of most Hong Kongers. “Liberate Hong Kong!” the protester kept on yelling as he followed Mr Huang. “Revolution of our times!” chanted passers-by, encouraging the pursuer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQOZkjV3d9E

If you're bored from reading so much, watch some Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyYgNDQ0XMU

Chinese linked companies targeted during Hong Kong protests

I think that proves my points well enough.

Source: the economist
Context: chinese student speaking mandarin to his parents on his mobile phone walking across campus...

https://www.economist.com/china/2019...d-in-hong-kong

So its ok to attack a shop because its owned by Chinese? Thats not exactly an argument for freedom and democracy...

Well like I said right from the beginning, I am as well anti-violence, it's been five months and the government really should respond to the claims to stop this anger. That's really all I'm saying. Both sides did shitty things, but the police get support and cover up by the government to what they're doing. There is no need to compare if the police is already doing better than the other countries, that doesn't logically justify what they are doing.

"If you're bored from reading so much, watch some Youtube."
why are u being mean now? Can't we just discuss?

First case, the guy on the phone, the attack was wrong.

Second case:
"she allegedly took close-up shots of people in masks"... shouldn't do that.

Third case:
"a mainlander shouted “We are all Chinese, long live China!” inside a shopping mall."... shouldn't do that either.

There are conflicts for sure. It's childish and I also don't support the attacks. There are other actions which I think is fine tho, most peaceful "protestors" just stop visiting Chinese owned shops.

Please do not misunderstand me, I never said I support violence!

The gouvernment already gave in by removing the law. The further demands are quite clearly nothing that's up for discussion and don't add to a possible peaceful solution. If I go rioting with friends in Zürich and demanding that Zürich becomes an own country, smashing windows from Non-Zürich people or attacking tourists for being "non-native speakers", what would the reaction from the police and gouvernment be?

In fact, demanding X, then after receiving it demand further Y, then Z - that's quite what some infamous Austrian-German guy did some 80+ years ago. It's quite well-known that if you keep on adding demands, at some point the other side will stop giving in at all & not being in the mood for anymore talks. Enough is enough. There really is NO reason to keep on protesting in it's current violent way. It's not like peaceful demonstrations would be banned, it's simply that the ongoing riots are destroying Hong Kong every day further.

And you didn't really got my rather humorous point/comment regarding YouTube. Pretty sure everyone else did.

Nobody in hong kong is demanding independence... instead, implementation of universal suffrage for Legislative Council and Chief Executive elections. And according to opinion poll 68.8% of the public support the large-scale restructuring of the police, it reflects that hong kong people lose trust to the police force and something has to be done, if I were the government I would conduct investigations into alleged police misconducts in the protests by establishing independent commission of inquiry, if the demands are answered there won't be anymore protests.

Edit: By the way the five demands were there since the early beginning, there's no adding XYZ demands.

Excuse me? Why this arrogant post? I really wanted to read HK people's opinion, not your friends' FB page. And aren't you projecting your views on my "Eastern European experiences"? What an utter arrogance, even for EF. Maybe you should inform yourself more....
I knew EF is very diverse and I was right. I didn't say I don't value your opinion, it's just not the only one, and maybe not the most accurate. I am sorry if that hurt your feelings that much. But well, that shows some people's true colours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_independence

Now I'm not so sure how well informed you're about the whole topic..

Sure, my post is arrogant... but you first call me biased, then you discounted my opinion based on not being from HK... then you made assumptions that people would not dare to post publicly if they are from HK... which as we can see now is far from correct.


You seem to know rather little about Asia but anything that doesnt fit your image of what it must be like gets dismissed. Your style is pretty belittling.

I'm from Hong Kong and I'm super informed about this topic. The five demands in this protest never include Hong Kong independence.

Thank you spaghetti for posting your views here. You really took the risk to get all sorts of unpleasant replies. I hope this discussion won't degenerate as usual.

No, but two of the five demands are:
- reclassification of the protesters to not be rioters. That makes a massive legal difference. However, what we have seen the last couple of months are absolutely riots by any standard. People throwing petrol bombs in order to not be called rioters is a bit like ing for virginity.


- Amnesty for arrested protesters. Was a rather far fetched demand at the beginning and is absolutely off the table now. If I own a business and somebody comes and smashes it up would I not agree to it and neither do a lot of HKers after the protests have escalated.


If HK wants to get back on track does the government look both into the police brutality claims as well as showing the violent part of the protesters the full force of the law.



Lastly: on the triad attack... I know that HK is full of conspiracy theories about it, but the way the mafia works the world over is rather simple: business owners have to pay for "security". So if said business owners go to the triads and say "I pay you for security but some skinny students smash my shop and you do nothing about it"... well, thats the sort of mafia response you get. The protests in the early day specifically targeted the shopping malls for day tourists from China. Every action gets a reaction.

Lol, I meant they wouldn't like to post here on English Forum because these discussions always get nasty. I am surprised someone actually took the bait.

And he/she seems to have slightly different opinions than some people here....

Wanting to hear other people's opinions is not discounting your opinion. I thought you might be biased and I expressed this opinion rather carefully. Read what you want, but your reply was uncalled for.

You just claimed something else, that "no one is demanding independence in HK", which is completely bollocks if you're reading the Wikipedia article.

And you can be from Hong Kong as long as you like - it doesn't mean you're neutral on the topic, quite the contrary. I've quite some friends as well as business partners there, and let me tell you, not a single one is supporting the protests anymore (some had some sympathy early on, but ALL of them have now moved into the "stop the riots, if needed with police units from the PRC" camp.) And they're telling me that every day, the mood in HK is switching more and more against the rioters and just to restore law and order.

Hong Kong is losing out big, the regular people in Hong Kong are losing out big, no one gains anything from the riots. As said by someone else before in this thread, it's just teenagers/young adults that can't accept the fact that they won't have such an easy&comfortable life as their parents and grandparents anymore because the unique situation of HK is no longer. They could still have a very decent life, but just like in the west, MOST people that are currently below 30, 35 will NOT have such a "guaranteed well life" like the generations who are now closing to retirement age or already having reached it. That's a fact in pretty much every "established economy", the world has changed and will continue to do so.

Most Hong Kongers do know that. Especially those with life experience.

No worries, it's still a very civilized conversation so far.

It's actually much more difficult in Hong Kong, sometimes the discussions are getting so heated up it tore families and best friends apart. And that's really heartbreaking.