TEHRAN, Jul 22 - Hong Kong police faced criticism on Monday for an apparent failure to protect anti-government protesters and passersby from attack by what opposition politicians suspected were gang members at a train station on the weekend.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -The attack on Sunday came during a night of escalating violence that opened new fronts in Hong Kong’s widening political crisis over an extradition bill, that could see people sent to China for trial.
Protesters had earlier on Sunday surrounded China’s main representative office in the city and defaced walls and signs and clashed with police.
The city’s Beijing-backed leader, Carrie Lam, condemned the attack on China’s main office in the city, the Central Government Liaison Office, saying it was a “challenge” to national sovereignty.
She condemned violent behavior of any kind and said she had been shocked by the clashes at the station, adding police would investigate fully.
“Violence will only breed more violence,” Lam said while flanked by senior city officials.
Some politicians and activists have linked Hong Kong’s shadowy network of triad criminal gangs to political intimidation and violence in recent years, sometimes against pro-democracy activists and critics of Beijing.
On Sunday night, scores of men in white T-shirts, some armed with clubs, flooded into the rural Yuen Long station, and stormed a train, attacking passengers with pipes, poles and other objects, according to video footage.
Witnesses, including Democratic lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, said the men appeared to target black-shirted passengers who had been at an anti-government march.
Lawmaker Lam, who was wounded in the face and hospitalized, said the police ignored calls he made, pleading with them to intervene to prevent bloodshed.
Source: reuters
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