Hong Kong Protesters Attacked Two Chinese Men Tuesday As Demonstrations Against Extradition Treaty Escalate

Pro-democracy dissidents turned violent yesterday at Hong Kong's airport.

On Tuesday, Hong Kong residents protesting an extradition treaty with mainland China held two men hostage for several hours in Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok Airport. The protesters, who have been demonstrating against the treaty for 10 weeks now, zip-tied the men's hands, beat them, and prevented paramedics from taking them out of the airport despite one of the men allegedly losing consciousness from his injuries.

A few protesters on the ground reportedly attempted to advocate for the paramedics, while the majority of the crowd refused to let them pass. Onlookers described the scene as much more chaotic than in days past.

The scene from above, showing the paramedics team trying to leave the premise. #HongKongAirport pic.twitter.com/6wmwxAtSsT

— Michael Yuxuan Zhang 張雨軒 (@YuxuanMichael) August 13, 2019

Eventually, paramedics were able to get the two men out. Both were treated for injuries and are expected to recover fully.

https://twitter.com/jgriffiths/status/1161272406519902208

The Wall Street Journal reports that

At one point, some protesters suggested they would let the man go but others dissented. A handful of airport officials attempted to intervene but were rebuffed. A small group of protesters tied the man up and shuffled him around the stiflingly hot airport hall for three hours, chanting "Bear the consequences."

On mainland China's Twitter-like microblogging service Weibo, users showed footage of one of the men who had been beaten in which he appeared to be unconscious and breathing through an oxygen tube. Many users expressed shock and anger at the assault in online comments.

Today, some protesters posted signs in Hong Kong and messages online apologizing for the violence. Protesters also issued an apology to the general public. The protesters have repeatedly tried to explain what they're fighting for and to communicate to visitors of Chek Lap Kok airport that they regret the inconvenience.

The two men were attacked at the airport because protesters suspected them of being pro-PRC infiltrators. One of the men is reportedly a police officer in Shenzhen, a city in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that links Hong Kong to the mainland, while the other man is a reporter for the Global Times, a Chinese state-owned media outlet whose coverage must comply with PRC censors.

The protests against the extradition treaty, which some Hongkongers fear would increase the PRC's control over Hong Kong, recently turned dangerous. Earlier this week, videos emerged of Hong Kong police using non-lethal bean bag rounds against protesters, which resulted in several people being sent to the hospital. The police also made a number of arrests by embedding plainclothes officers with demonstrators, feeding protesters'  suspicions that other non-dissidents were hiding among them.

Young Hongkongers are fighting the extradition treaty (which would also include an extradition agreement with Taiwan) because they fear it will empower mainland China to erode the rights they currently enjoy as a semi-autonomous "special administrative region" of the PRC. These young Hongkongers have never really known a non-democratic Hong Kong, and are intensely opposed to the prospect of being governed by the mainland.

Escalating police and military tactics have fostered warranted paranoia among protesters that their movement will fall due to either Chinese government suppression or infiltration. Earlier this week, the Chinese military stationed tanks in Shenzhen, presumably due to its easy access to Hong Kong—a thinly-veiled warning for protesters to comply or face the consequences.

More here, here, and here.

Comments

[John]

The protests against the extradition treaty, which some Hongkongers fear would increase the PRC's control over Hong Kong, recently turned dangerous.

That has to be one of the most dishonest sentences I have ever read. Some people don't "fear" that this would do that. It would. The law would make Hong Kong residents subject to Chinese law and extradition to Chinese courts for violating it. This is in direct contradiction to the agreement made when the city was transferred from the British.

Reason is now shilling for the Communist Chinese. Every time you think reason can't go lower, they prove you wroong.

[loveconstitution1789]

I was prepared for reason to Propagandize for the Commie once the Chinese troops roll in and squash this protest.

It is interesting that reason is already doing it.

[Nardz]

Yea, I've been waiting for Reason to post their article throwing in with the ChiComs.
Didn't take long

[John]

It is even bad by mainstream media standards. In all of the news reports I have read about these protests this is the first time I have seen anyone equivocate about the nature of the statute and the validity of the complaints against it. Holy shit, how does someone write that?

[grb]

Jeez... Will the tin-foil-hat snowflake whining ever end ?!?

EVERY account I've read says two things :

(1) The extradition change was ostensibly justified by a murderer who fled to Taiwan after killing his girlfriend
(2) But protesters assume - with justification - that the real purpose is to increase Chinese control over Hong Kong's judicial system.

So the "most dishonest sentence" you've ever read differs from that exactly how much? All your conspiratorial gibberish is based on what distinction? So the Reason staff are now lackeys of the Yellow Commies? Last question : Exactly what masturbatory pleasure do you people get from this paranoia anyway? I just don't get the thrill you derive from this nonsense.

[Nardz]

"Hong Kong protesters attacked two Chinese men..."

Yea, that choice of headline totally isn't purposeful

[John]

(2) But protesters assume – with justification – that the real purpose is to increase Chinese control over Hong Kong’s judicial system.

So you admit that the sentence is wrong and it is not just "some people fear". Thanks dipshit.

Good god you are fucking stupid.

[middlefinger]

I absolutely knew that Reason would eventually stand firm with communist murderous dictators. Last week Reason calls Chavez/Xi supporting Labor party brits "moderate". Global welfarists are true believers that they can make the planet one big centrally planned economy and authoritarian rationed welfare state, much like the old soviet union.

[ThomasD]

Kinder gentler statism.

Mostly.

If you know your place.

Peasant.

[mtrueman]

"Reason is now shilling for the Communist Chinese."

I wouldn't say that. It's just Reason's reflexive sneering at protestors. You've surely seen this before.

[ThomasD]

Yeah, all that sneering at Black Lives Matters was off putting.

[mtrueman]

If commie bashing doesn't work, play the race card. You've learned well the ways of America.

[MJBinAL]

Actually, you made a broad statement to get Reason off the hook, and he immediately provided the example of why your broad statement was horse shit.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The whole attack honestly hinted at "false flag"--a few ChiCom agents targeting specific individuals, one of whom is a reporter for a Chinese nationalist paper--except for the fact that there were signs today by the protestors apologizing for what happened, stating they are desperate and things got out of hand.

With that said, large-scale protests in east Asia tend to get pretty rough. A lot of people who are fanning their face about the violence have clearly never seen the average South Korean protest on TV. I've seen footage of protestors whacking police with bamboo sticks and cops retaliating in kind. The main reason this is getting so much coverage is because of the players and principals involved, not because it's particularly exceptional in the depth of the protestor/police clashes.

[loveconstitution1789]

Freedom ain't free.

Notice none of the Hong Kongers have guns. The police do though.

The Hong Kongers are pretty well restrained for being the victims of subjugation by the Commies in China.

I am skeptical of any Chinese state media from these protests until the Commies start releasing video of grabbing protesters and what they do with them in camps.

[John]

I am skeptical that this is the protesters doing this and not a government false flag operation.

[loveconstitution1789]

There have already been reports of plain clothes police/government agents violently arresting certain protesters.

Its not a leap for agents to commit violence to justify government escalation. The FBI has been doing it for decades.

[Sam Haysom]

Let’s not do this. Even if you support the protestors (as I do even though I admit that’s only because I want to see China weakened) the good guys can be violent. They thought they were spies and they beat them up. It’s just a shame they had to be using an American flag. America isn’t coming for them and they need to understand that so they aren’t surprised.

[John]

Sure they can be violent. And the Chinese government can be ruthless and deceptive. Why are you willing to dismiss the one but not the other?

[Sam Haysom]

I’m not I’m saying don’t just scream false flag when one of the good guys does something bad.

[mad.casual]

The Hong Kongers are pretty well restrained for being the victims of subjugation by the Commies in China.

I've been involved in sports victory celebrations that were more violent and destructive.

[Ron]

I think if the tanks do start rolling the violence will go up exponentially by both parties

[Ragnarredbeard]

This incident smells. Was it really the pro-democracy demonstrators? Or was it provocateurs that have been trying to turn this violent so the Chinese government can look like heroes when they crush a few with tanks?

[John]

Bingo.

[mad.casual]

This incident smells.

Terribly.

[mad.casual]

Where's OBL to trumpet Reason's steadfast and principled libertarian pro-Open Borders stance when you need him?

[mamabug]

I am highly skeptical of any 'news' coming out of HK or China to the point that I have zero trust any of it is accurate in the slightest. I'm leaning on the side of this not being a false flag, though.

The problem with protests is, leave them to go on long enough and ratchet up the tension with sporadic acts of violence, they eventually devolve into mob behavior. The bigger they get, the harder it is for whatever leadership is in place to maintain control.

China knows this and is good at playing this game. They've been poking at the protesters with pointy sticks, daring them to overreact so they have justification to roll in the tanks.

[Sam Haysom]

You are vastly overrating the Chinese. The Chinese are trying to figure out what trump will do if the situation escalates. It appears trump has backed off from the tariffs because he can’t have a recession. And thank god keeping the Democrats out of the White House matters a shit ton more to me that what happens in HK.

[mtrueman]

than not that

[John]

Trump's backing off of tariffs has nothing to do with fears of a recession. If we are going to have a recession, tariffs on China have little or nothing to do with it.

[MJBinAL]

True, it will have far more to do with the FED keeping interest rates higher than the rest of the planet. They are intentionally slamming the brakes on the economy.

You can be generous, and attribute the FED's behavior to fear of inflation, or cynical and attribute it to an attempt to put a thumb on the 2020 election scale. What they are doing is however, beyond reasonable debate.

[Ron]

I'm even skeptical of commenters on some sites. on another site yesterday one commenter was talking of how bad protesters were such that i think it was a commie troll. Everyone knows that every nation does those things to change peoples opinions, is Liz one of them

[John]

Note that we have two commenters here Sam Hayson and GRB, whom I have never seen before, and are saying the protesters are at fault.

[loveconstitution1789]

+10

[Sevo]

Sam has been around for years, from time to time; as batshit crazy as Hihn.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

grb popped up a couple of months ago, spouting NPC leftie bromides.

[Nardz]

I've seen em
Don't remember much of what Sam's ever had to say, but grb is just typical progressive

[mtrueman]

"I am highly skeptical of any ‘news’ coming out of HK or China "

Well, this 'news' is coming straight to us from Austin, Texas.

[M L]

How bizarre and desperate that our communist sympathizing MSM is jumping on this little incident. Turned violent? The violence has been going on for weeks. I've seen dozens of videos of protesters being beaten to a bloody pulp. So why didn't those people become the subject of a major MSM blitz or those events declared a "tipping point" ?

This morning WaPo declared, without evidence, that this was a "tipping point" and this incident was causing the protesters to lose the battle for "hearts and minds." As we all know, Reason is a card carrying member of the Journolist type arrangement where they receive talking points and act in unison with the forces of evil.

At the same time as this, a video emerged of Hong Kong protesters waving American flags and singing our national anthem over a loudspeaker. The video was very popular and viral on social media. But there is not a mention in the media. In a world where we didn't have an entire MSM apparatus taken over by a cabal of propagandists, that would have been the front page story.

[loveconstitution1789]

The MSM Propagandists love to decide when the "tipping point" is and when the Communists won. Just give in.

They did the same thing with the Tet Offensive being a huge loss for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. The media spun it into a loss for South Vietnamese and US military forces.

[Longtobefree]

I bet you read one of those history book things, didn't you?
Just because the troops in the Tet offensive only had food and ammunition for three days, with no reserves at all, you think that it was a suicide attack designed for the sole purpose of getting TV pictures of NVA troops in south Vietnamese cities. You act like the MSM would never to forget to report the recapture of all cities in less than a week. Well, OK, Hue was a month.

[Nardz]

And the near complete annihilation of the vietcong

[loveconstitution1789]

+100

In total, about 85,000–100,000 communist troops had participated in the initial onslaught and in the follow-up phases. Overall, during the "Border Battles" of 1967 and the nine-month winter-spring campaign, 45,267 communist troops had been killed in action.

According to General Tran Van Tra: "We did not correctly evaluate the specific balance of forces between ourselves and the enemy, did not fully realize that the enemy still had considerable capabilities, and that our capabilities were limited, and set requirements that were beyond our actual strength."

According to General Tran Van Tra, 45,267 NLF/NVA troops had been killed during 1968 From this point forward, Hanoi was forced to fill nearly 70% of the Viet Cong's ranks with North Vietnamese regulars. PRG Justice Minister Trương Như Tảng said that the Tet Offensive had wiped out half of the Viet Cong's strength,while the official Vietnamese war history notes that by 1969, very little communist-held territory ("liberated zones") existed in South Vietnam.

[loveconstitution1789]

"If I have lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America."
-LBJ

I still dont understand why Walter Cronkite could not simply report news and was so invested in its outcome.

[MJBinAL]

Because, even then, the media was Progressive and Walter Cronkite was as progressive as any.
Without alternative press or the internet it was just easier to mold the news without getting caught back then.

[NashTiger]

Um, Old Hong Kongers have never known being governed by the mainland

[Longtobefree]

Concerned citizens.
Peaceful protesters.
Dissidents.
Rioters.
Terrorists.
Anybody know the dividing lines here? Which group is which?
When was the last time antifa apologized for beating someone in public?

[Uncle Jay]

I recommend a trade.
America takes all the citizens of Hong Kong, and the People's Republic of China gets all the proggies in America and a third round draft choice.
I think that would work out well for everyone.

[Nardz]

I like it

[loveconstitution1789]

+100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

[loveconstitution1789]

10... to the fuck yeah!

[mad.casual]

Hong Kong and Taiwan for California and NYC.

[MJBinAL]

I LOVE THIS!

[Spiritus Mundi]

Hong Kong Protesters Attacked Two Chinese Men

Nah, they were just venting some righteous indignation after being repeatedly shot in the face with bean bag rounds.

[Mongo]

Confucius say: "Man who play music in Hong Kong street get beat down."

[Blake]

This article is terrible. It makes no mention of the hundreds of protesters beaten and abducted by PRC or those that would be once the extradition treaty is enforced. They have been replacing the police and politicians with Pro-PRC ones for years. PRC has also been plating fake protestors to encourage violence and make the protestors look bad.

PRC has been riling up the people with propaganda and lies so that most people within China are out for blood and blame everything on the protestors. A protestor with a nerf gun was used in the Chinese media as an example of how violent the protests have become. This has clearly been China's goal from the start, make it seem like a violent movement so they can move in and crush them without an international outcry. It's nice to know that Reason is now part of the great firewall propaganda machine.

"The protests against the extradition treaty, which some Hongkongers fear would increase the PRC’s control over Hong Kong, recently turned dangerous."

PRC's has already increased its control over Hong Kong. I don't think you know what you're talking about because it didn't recently turn dangerous, Pro-PRC police have been beating protesters for weeks now.

From 27 July 2019:
“The violent scenes in Yuen Long tonight were in part because Hong Kong police chose to inflame a tense situation rather than deescalate it. For police to declare today’s protest unlawful was simply wrong under international law.

... there were repeated instances today where police officers were the aggressors; beating retreating protesters, attacking civilians in the train station and targeting journalists. Alarmingly, such a heavy-handed response now appears the modus operandi for Hong Kong police and we urge them to quickly change course.”

[darkflame]

Some articles I've seen have mentioned special riot assault squads that rush the protestors in an attempt to grab people and pull them back into police lines, while beating anyone in their way.

[Unable2Reason]

If the protesters only had access to the same facial recognition system that the commies are using they could pick out those infiltrators.

[vek]

To all the pussies out there: Not saying THIS bit of violence makes any sense... But often times it has to come to that. IMO if HK and/or the rest of China ever want to be free, they're going to have to kill A LOT of communist thugs. And they would be morally in the right to do so.

Non violence only rarely works for getting anything major done. That's just reality. When your oppressors are fine using violence against you to keep you down, you have to be willing to use violence to take your freedom.