Hong Kong protests: Tensions high on campuses

Hong Kong’s campuses were on the front lines of its political crisis on Wednesday, as residents braced for a third straight day of traffic jams and ugly clashes between riot police officers and demonstrators.

The protests that have roiled the semiautonomous Chinese city since June have generally come at night, on weekends or during public holidays. This week’s disruptions are notable because they have strained the city’s infrastructure during ordinary workdays, forcing commuters to choose whether to venture outside and risk being caught up in clashes or tear gas.

Schools and universities are flashpoints. A day after young demonstrators staged a fiery standoff against the police on the fringes of a university campus, the Education Bureau said on Wednesday that it was up to parents whether to send their children to school — a move that angered two prominent teachers’ unions.

Student demonstrators with umbrellas, masks, bricks and shields geared up on Wednesday at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a campus that has become a focal point of the confrontation between the protesters and the police.

Protesters at other universities were also building barricades at campus entrances and digging up paving stones in preparation for a potential standoff with the police.

The activists say they are defending their campuses from police intrusion. The police assert that they have to stop demonstrators from blocking roads, throwing bricks or trying to disrupt rail services.

On Tuesday night, riot police officers fired dozens of rounds of tear gas at demonstrators who set a giant blaze and threw gasoline bombs in a clash that lasted for hours and left dozens injured.

The protesters who clashed with the police outside the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Tuesday were angry over the police shooting of a young demonstrator at point-blank range on a street corner a day earlier.

Tensions had been building after the death last week of a student who fell from a parking garage amid demonstrations. Many in the protest movement now see the student, Chow Tsz-lok, as a martyr.

Ever since protests began in June over a contentious, but since-withdrawn, extradition bill, the movement has been driven in large part by large numbers of high school and university-age students. But until recently, campuses were a relative safe zone from violent street clashes.

John Lee, Hong Kong’s secretary for security, defended the police on Wednesday. Universities are not meant to be “breeding grounds for violence,” he told reporters. “If someone sees violence and does not stop it, then that person becomes an accomplice.”

The Education Bureau said on Wednesday morning that it was up to parents whether their children attended school, and that schools should keep their campuses open regardless. It also warned students not to “wander on the streets or go to potentially dangerous places, and should never participate in unlawful activities.”

The bureau’s statement immediately prompted criticism from unions on opposite sides of the city’s political spectrum.

The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union, which has long supported the city’s pro-democracy politicians, condemned the city’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, for having endangered teachers’ and students’ safety by not cancelling classes entirely.

And a pro-government teachers’ union, the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, said in a separate statement that while it strongly condemned “rioters” for depriving the rights of students to learn, it regretted the government had put schools in a difficult position by forcing them to remain open.

There were widespread transit disruptions across the Asian financial centre on Wednesday, marking the third straight day that protesters had impeded some of the city’s essential infrastructure.

As of late Wednesday morning, there were delays or service disruptions on eight of Hong Kong’s 11 subway lines, the city’s subway operator said. Two major lines, including one line that runs from a harborside district on the Kowloon Peninsula to the border of the Chinese mainland, were completely suspended.

In some Kowloon neighbourhoods, streets and intersections were strewn with trash, bricks, bamboo poles and other debris that the protesters had laid to impede traffic.

In Kowloon’s Mong Kok neighbourhood, drivers were cautiously manoeuvring around obstacles as cleaners brought in huge bins with the help of riot police officers. The scent of smoke and tear gas from clashes a night earlier was still on the breeze, forcing cleaners and pedestrians to cover their mouths and noses.

The demonstrations that began in June have gradually morphed into calls for greater democracy and police accountability. Many in the movement also want the US Congress and President Donald Trump to enact a bill that would force the executive branch to, among other things, review Hong Kong’s special trade status each year.

On Wednesday morning, a few dozen peaceful protesters marched to the US Consulate in central Hong Kong, handing out copies of letters calling for passage of the American legislation, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

Vincent Ku, a middle-aged insurance manager and graduate of Chinese University of Hong Kong, took the day off from work to join the procession. He said he had been dismayed to see the police action the night before at his alma mater.

“It’s not a war,” he said. “These are peaceful students.”

© 2019 New York Times News Service