HongKong

Police fire tear gas after protesters gather in Yuen Long to commemorate July 21 attack


Police used tear gas to clear streets in Yuen Long last night following a stand-off with residents and protesters who were marking the three-month anniversary of the violent attack at an MTR station there.

MTR Corp closed the station at 2pm yesterday in a bid to scupper a planned sit-in inside the station. Now TV News reported that YOHO Mall, which is next to the station, also closed early at 5pm.

After the station was shut, calls went out online for protesters to gather in Yuen Long anyway, and to stage flash protests across the city. According to multiple live feeds from last night, people were seen staging sit-ins and chanting slogans at Tuen Mun, Tai Koo, and Tseung Kwan O MTR stations.

According to RTHK, police fired multiple rounds of tear gas in Yuen Long’s Kuk Ting Street, Tai Tong Road, and close to residential buildings in Hong Lok Road at about 9:30pm. Hours earlier, black-clad protesters had gathered on Castle Peak Road next to the station and YOHO Mall and started building barricades.

Riot police arrived at the scene shortly afterwards, and local residents came out to heckle the police and criticize them for their response to the July 21 attacks at Yuen Long, which took authorities more than half an hour to respond to.

The police said in a social media post last night that the tear gas was deployed after “rioters” threw unspecified hard objects at police, and urged people to avoid the area and local residents to keep their windows closed and stay indoors.

【暴徒於元朗向警員投擲硬物 • 破壞銀行設施 •…

Posted by 香港警察 Hong Kong Police on Monday, October 21, 2019

The July attack at Yuen Long — often referred to by protesters as the 721 incident — saw dozens of men in white shirts indiscriminately attack commuters, journalists, and protesters returning home from a pro-democracy rally on Hong Kong Island that day.

The attack lasted for at least half an hour, during which time the white-shirted mob beat people with metal rods and bamboo sticks inside the train station, and even inside a train carriage.

The incident saw scores of people injured, and more than 30 people have since been arrested in connection with the attack, some of them with links to organized crime. At least six suspects have been charged with rioting, according to police, with some of those charged set to resume their court cases on Friday, Oct. 25.

The attack drew widespread condemnation of the already-embattled police force due to the fact that it took officers nearly 40 minutes to respond to the onslaught. Police were later seen in videos from the night failing to take action against armed men in the vicinity of the station believed to have taken part in the assaults.





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