How are hong kong protesters eating and making money

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What do protesters want?

Jimmy entered the Hong Kong police station on a Tuesday evening last month and went about his usual routine. He exchanged pleasantries with the officer on duty and did an official check-in, fulfilling a bail condition for his arrest in July for unlawful protesting. If the officer noticed the rope burns on his hands and wrists, they didn’t ask. That line of questioning—how he got those injuries, what he was doing over the weekend—would have undoubtedly prolonged his stay. Instead, Jimmy, who like others in this now asked not msking be identified by his full name, for fear of legal repercussions, walked out of the station and boarded a bus for the minute ride home. It had been a wild weekend of protests and police confrontations at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Jimmy, who is 24, had rushed to the campus two days earlier on Sunday, with a friend in tow. He was responding to a call for support for protesters at the university, put out on the secure eatng platform Telegram. The app, which allows users to build enormous groups and channels, has been instrumental to the protesters—not just for organizing but also for other less conventional needs, like tracking police movements and linking up injured demonstrators eatinf of going to the hospital with doctors and nurses.

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Oftentimes it is used in tandem with LIHKG, a maing forum that serves as an incubation hub for protest ideas and debate. Perhaps the most telling testament to how indispensable the platforms are to the movement is that both have suffered cyberattacks originating in China meant to knock them offline. Protesters donned foil-lined gas masks to hide their identities and dim the glare of police flashlights. The technological cat-and-mouse games online have also spilled onto the streets, where protesters have improved hwo equipment—upgrading from cheap surgical masks to military-grade respirators—and relied on sheer ingenuity to defend themselves against law enforcement, repurposing street signs as shields and traffic cones to divert tear gas. Demonstrators have donned body armor and lined their goggles with reflective film to foil police flashlights and mask their identities. The government has responded by arresting people for merely possessing a laser pointer, claiming that they are offensive weapons. Protests play incessantly on mobile phones in the hands of orotesters riders and on building-side video boards, streamed live by dozens of journalists racing through protesterx streets to keep hongg with demonstrators. This post-apocalyptic tableau was on full display on the campus of PolyU, as the school is better known, a dense acre cluster of rectangular brick buildings and cylindrical towers. The buildings, located in the Hung Sating district of Kowloon, sit like an imposing red island encircled by a rae of major roadways that are crisscrossed by pedestrian bridges and flyovers linking the university to the nearby neighborhood. Inside, many of the buildings are situated one story above ground level and are interconnected. The numerous overhangs and covered walkways give the campus a labyrinthine quality; newcomers inevitably find themselves asking for directions from a student or professor. Jimmy had been coming and going from the campus for the past few days, one of the thousands of protesters occupying the university.

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Impossibly high property prices and other economic grievances certainly helped fuel the anger that led to the Umbrella Movement protests of , as many wanted to break the influence of big business on politics they believed impeded democratic progress. A wave of businesses, mostly small and independent companies ranging from cafes to yoga studios to porn sites , joined a strike on June 12 as a way of expressing their opposition to the extradition law, which, once passed, would allow Hong Kong to send suspects to mainland China to face charges. Over 1, businesses that pledged to strike were listed on a widely circulated spreadsheet link in Chinese. Instead of the electorate voting directly for their leader, the Hong Kong chief executive is decided by a committee of 1, people selected from a range of sectors heavily skewed toward the pro-Beijing business elite. Though the impact of small businesses like hers going on strike is small, she said, she sees it as laying the groundwork for future battles such as in local and legislative elections, where opposition groups hope that growing public anger will erode support for pro-establishment parties. Among those named were billionaire Li, and Michael Tien, a lawmaker who is among those able to vote for the chief executive, and founder of international work-apparel chain G He attributed youth discontent in part to repeated governments ignoring their concerns. The coming G20 summit, when world leaders will gather in Osaka to discuss the world economy, is providing another focal point for gatherings this week. They shut down streets in downtown and government districts for over two months, and the narrative that the protests were a disruption to business dominated the talking points of those critical of them. To counter those criticisms, Ocean Leung, a year-old artist, helped launch a Facebook group in to promote small businesses in the mostly working-class area of Mong Kok that was one of the sites of Occupy. The page continues to be active today, and has shared information about the anti-extradition-law protests, and related strikes and boycotts. They believe they can be both conscientious, and be in business. Skip to navigation Skip to content.

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HONG KONG — What started in June with peaceful rallies in opposition to contentious legislation has devolved into a steady stream of mayhem, with some protesters embracing violent behaviors in response to brutal police tactics. The protesters and the Hong Kong government, backed by Beijing, appear to have intractable differences, and there have been few signs of either side backing.

The standoff has taken on international importance. China has viewed the protests as a challenge to its fervent nationalism, while democracy supporters worldwide have cheered what they see as a poke in the eye of the autocratic Chinese government.

It all comes amid a rancorous trade war between China and the Eatinf States, and some international businesses, including the N. The policy made Hong Kong part of China but let it keep many liberties denied to citizens on the mainland, including free speech, unrestricted internet access and yow right to free assembly.

The territory has its own wre, system of government and police force under a mini-constitution known as the Basic Law. China promised that this system would remain in place until at least Many people in the territory feel deep contempt for the Chinese government, and hope to preserve their freedoms for as long as possible. At its core, the movement is aimed at resisting encroachment from the mainland — but it has been complicated by rising violence. At first, the movement was focused on a bill, since scrappedthat would have allowed people accused of crimes to be sent to places with which Hong Kong protssters no extradition treaty — including mainland Chinawhere the courts are controlled by the Communist Party.

How are hong kong protesters eating and making money of thousands of people, fearing the bill would allow Beijing to target dissidents in Hong Kong with phony charges, joined a peaceful march to oppose the bill on June 9.

On June 12ars the first time, the police used pepper spray, batons and more than canisters of tear gas to disperse thousands of protestersa small number of whom had thrown projectiles at the police. Irate at the police response, protesters demanded an independent investigation of the police force — a demand leaders have refused. While anger at the police has been a driving force, protesters have extended their demands to include amnesty for arrested participants and direct elections for all lawmakers and the chief executive.

The movement is largely leaderless, with decisions frequently made through voting in online forums. The protests started as peaceful marches and rallies against an unpopular. Then now dozens of rounds of tear gas and a government that now to back. A vast majority of participants have been nonviolent, staging strikes, surrounding police stations, shutting down the airport and forming huge marches.

Some protesters have thrown bricks and Molotov cocktails, and in one case stabbed a police officer. The police say that one homemade bomb was detonated during a protest.

On several occasions, protesters have doled out vigilante justice, beating people who were perceived to be against their movement, including one man who was doused kon fluid and set on fire. A firebrand pro-Beijing lawmaker, Junius Ho, was attacked with a knife. There has been considerable property damage to the train system, which protesters have accused of supporting the police, and businesses seen as pro-China.

Protesters say the violence is in defense of excessively violent police tactics. Officers have liberally deployed tear gas in ways that defy international standards, including firing canisters from a height and using it in enclosed spaces.

Several protesters have been shot with live rounds. Cannons shooting water laced with a corrosive blue dye have become a routine presence at protests. Individual interactions with the police that are captured on video, such as the use of pepper spray against protesteers pregnant woman and an officer on a motorcycle swerving into protestershave infuriated demonstrators.

Passions were further inflamed in November when a Hong Kong student died after falling from a parking garage near demonstrations, possibly the first death of the movement. The exact circumstances surrounding his death remain unknown. Standoffs on university campuses have resembled trench warfare, with officers firing tear gas and protesters attacking the police with firebombs, arrows and other projectiles.

A standoff at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in November went on for days, with protesters trapped as the police laid siege to the campus. A police officer was hit in the leg with an arrow, while dozens of protesters were injured or suffered from hypothermia after being hit by a water cannon. But despite some domestic propaganda showing tanks assembling across the border in Beijing, it appears China is trying to avoid a Tiananmen-style crackdown. Still, China does not want to bend to the protesters, whom the state news media have depicted as lawless, spoiled separatists.

Most protesters say they are uninterested in independence. And protesters have shown few signs of fatigue, despite thousands of arrests. What do protesters want? Why have the demonstrations turned violent? How does it end? Six Months of Hong Kong Protests. How Did We Get Here? No one knows.

Chinese linked companies targeted during Hong Kong protests

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By Jiayang Fan. A cloudless mid-September afternoon in Hong Kong. Inside, university students are engaged in intense debate.

After six months of unrest, anti-Beijing protesters are increasingly unwilling to compromise.

It seemed to guarantee that after the handover, which took place inHong Kong would continue to enjoy distinct political and socioeconomic freedoms for at least fifty years. As the show progressed, it reached back in time. Wu explained that this aer came from interviews with older people; one actor had interviewed his father, a staunch opponent of the pro-democracy protests, and now spoke his words onstage. After the show, I talked to the cast. A graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts mentioned that work on the play had started in the summer, not long after the beginning of the current wave of protests. She found herself thinking how odd it was to be inside rehearsing a play about protests when you could just go outside and join a real one. Many of the actors were involved in the street demonstrations, and some rehearsals had been rescheduled to accommodate particularly significant rallies. Taking off their stage costumes at ard end of a show, they donned others: the all-black clothing, gas masks, progesters helmets that have become the de-facto hlng of the uprising. A stage had been set up. College and high-school students were taking turns at an open mike, speaking qnd an audience in much the same terms that the actors inside. In the same sense, the protesters were finding their voices on the streets of the city. Yet, as blazingly alive as these artistic and political voices were, they were shadowed by futility.