Police arrested hundreds Sunday, using tactics now deployed against anyone suspected of sympathizing with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement: conducting widespread stops and searches, surrounding and arresting protesters and tackling even minors with force. By Sunday evening, at least 289 people were arrested, including one under the new national security law.
Calls began circulating online in late August for people to march against the decision to postpone the legislative elections and the new national security law passed by fiat in Beijing in late June. The law has effectively outlawed many of the movement’s tactics and threatens those accused of broadly worded crimes such as secession, foreign collusion, subversion of state power and terrorism with life in prison. It has been used to target activists, including Jimmy Lai, the millionaire media tycoon.
Thousands of police officers were deployed to Kowloon to prevent the planned protest from taking place. Roads and tunnels into the neighborhood were blocked by traffic police, who searched incoming cars and the bags of passengers aboard buses. Hundreds of riot police thronged the march’s route and stopped and searched suspected protesters.
Protesters emerged from side streets to walk north to the bustling shopping and entertainment district Mong Kok. They occasionally broke into chants such as “liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time”— now considered seditious and secessionist under the new law.
Police targeted protesters with pepper balls and pepper spray. They cordoned off long stretches of the street to stop and search suspected protesters. Chaos broke out when undercover police officers, walking among the protesters, tackled several to the ground and dragged them away. Protesters hurled plastic water bottles at them.
Footage circulated on social media of several male officers tackling a 12-year-old girl who tried to escape a police cordon. Police said she “suddenly ran away in a suspicious manner” and officers subdued her with “minimum necessary force.”
Among the arrested were opposition politicians with the League of Social Democrats who unfurled a banner criticizing the government for postponing the election. Critics say authorities have delayed the vote to avoid an embarrassing defeat for the pro-establishment camp. Nearly three-quarters of respondents to a recent poll by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute said they wanted the poll to be held as soon as possible, despite the coronavirus.
The politicians, like most of those arrested, were detained on suspicion of illegal assembly. Others were charged with assaulting and obstructing police and disorderly conduct in a public place. An officer with the Hong Kong Police Force, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said mass arrests are a tactic frequently deployed to scare pro-democracy protesters and their sympathizers and to deter further protests.
By evening, police closed in on the area from all sides, sweeping through to make more arrests and forcing everyone to pass through a police line to leave.
One man in his 20s said he joined the protest despite the heavy penalties “to show the world we’re still fighting and still need support.”
“It’s very important that the world continues to pay attention to what’s happening in Hong Kong, that we don’t even have the right to vote or protest anymore,” said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong said a small group of “anti-China rioters” had incited an “illegal demonstration.” In a statement, the office praised Hong Kong’s government and police for enforcing the law and “maintaining stability.”
“There will be zero tolerance for violations of Hong Kong’s national security law,” the office said. “We will never allow Hong Kong to become chaotic again.”