Thousands of protesters gathered in Causeway Bay at 1pm today. Again, it was called by online anonymous people. There was no proper organiser. What was more was that this was an illegal march. But thousands arrived at the streets nevertheless.
This kind of scene occurred multiple times last year, during the anti-China Extradition bill movement. But since the Chinese New Year 2020, I had not seen this again for the past five months.
With the onset of the pandemic the Carrie Lam govt had imposed a lock down law and banned public gathering with over eight persons.
The news that Beijing is going to impose such law on Hong Kong now angered many people, especially the young, however. Today they came to protests.
The police at first tried to deter people from gathering by making some arrests. But it failed.
Some time after 1 pm thousands of protesters occupied the main street. They were mainly young people. Our small group of comrades joined them to protest.
But the police soon fire tear gas to stop the crowd to grow even bigger.
We all ran and retreated into side streets. Soon the protesters spread out to other areas and occupied the streets there, briefly. A kind of cat and mouse game repeated again and again in the busy shopping areas in Hong Kong Island. Eventually at least 120 people were arrested.
I know many protesters felt satisfied in the end of the day despite the arrest — “we continue to defy your ban and your evil law!”
When I began my journal back home i noticed a video was crazily shared in the facebook.
This was about a policeman rushed through the door of a convenient shop, grapped a bottle of water, and then just left without ever paying. Lots of people mocked the policeman with remarks like “pay!” or “arrest him!”
The police eventually posted a statement saying that they had paid the shop owner on behalf of the policeman. I am delighted that the police was embarrassed.
Au (Hong Kong)