One America News is reporting today that the protests in Hong Kong have spread across Hong Kong’s New Territories and Kowloon peninsula.
The article reports:
Pro-democracy protesters vandalized a train station in the central new town of Sha Tin and a restaurant seen as being pro-Beijing, overturning banqueting tables and smashing glass panels, two weeks before district council elections.
Violence spilled out onto the streets of Tuen Mun outside the “V city” mall, with running battles between riot police and protesters.
Now TV showed pictures of a circular, red welt and bruise on the upper arm of one of its reporters who said she had been hit by a tear gas canister in Tsuen Wan, to the west of the New Territories, where police fired tear gas late into the evening to clear the streets.
The rail station was closed in Sha Tin, amid scuffles between police and protesters young and old, on a day of planned shopping mall protests throughout the territory. Shopping districts across the harbor on the main island were quiet.
Protesters daubed graffiti and damaged shops at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong and “stormed” stores in Tsuen Wan, police said.
The violence spread to the Kowloon district of Mong Kok, one of the world’s most densely populated areas. Police used water cannon and volley after volley of tear gas to try to clear the main artery of Nathan Road, which was littered with loose bricks under the bright, neon lights.
Police also fired tear gas late at night in the New Territories district of Tai Po, north of Sha Tin.
Protesters are angry about what they see as police brutality and meddling by Beijing in the former British colony’s freedoms, guaranteed by the “one country, two systems” formula in place since the territory returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
China denies interfering and has blamed Western countries for stirring up trouble.
China has not lived up to the agreement signed with Britain to allow Hong Kong the freedoms it had previously enjoyed. The people of Hong Kong are fighting to regain those freedoms. We need to keep in mind that China signed an agreement guaranteeing those freedoms and has chosen to violate that agreement. This is something to remember as we negotiate trade deals with China–they are not a country that negotiates in good faith or a country that supports freedom.