Tuesday 12 November 2019

Mayhem at Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Happening now (11:00pm) at Chinese University Hong Kong, my alma mater (1977). Police went there because the students were trashing it*. Throwing petrol bombs, smashing classrooms. Are the police supposed to let that happen unhindered? But the western media frames it as “Beijing-backed police raid college”.
11:28 pm and there’s vandalising going on in town. At Prince  Edward and Mongkok. All this an escalation because before was weekends only. All because a student died in a tragic accident which they blame the police, but which the police had nothing to do with. The video evidence proves it. But they don’t care about evidence. The police are the hated enemy.
It’s all too depressing for words. There’s no way this can achieve anything good. Only bad. Only more repression by Beijing.
I live in constant apprehension that I’ll wake up one morning to find that something really horrible has happened either by the protesters or by Beijing.

*LATER (1.10 pm 13th Nov): someone on RTHK radio 3 just said that the police had gone into CUHK for "no reason", that there had been no protesters until the police arrived which triggered them.  I thought that a bit odd, as that’s not what it looked like last night. And indeed, even the protester-friendly HK Free Press reports that the police were there because "Masked protesters wearing all-black had put up roadblocks and thrown bricks as well as petrol bombs.  So there you have it. Fake news on one side or the other.  Im going with the evidence of my eyes last night, and of the HKFP report, and common sense.  So, I’m sticking with my comment above that police “went there [Chinese U] because the students were trashing it”. 
As Bloomberg says, fake news is fuelling the violence. The rioters dont need much encouragement to think the worst of the police. If they believe (clearly, wrongly) that the police “invaded” the CUHK for no reason, then that leads to more violence.