> The ransacking of parliament appeared to have been allowed. There was no police presence at all. Almost as if they were being purposefully held back.
I personally thinks this comes after there were more confrontations before, and there was a lot of public outcry over the use of force. (It being justified or not)
There was initially a large police presence inside the parliament (LegCo), but they all retreated after protestors became increasingly violent, I think it was mostly a tactical decision, it would've been impossible for the police to push back, so all they could do was hold their grounds. If protestors stormed in while the police was still there, it would've been a very difficult and violent confrontations. So I think they decided to fall back, and give protestors space.
And from previous protests, the police has never held back, they've always cracked down once the protests got out of control, don't really see what they would do so now, and just one time.
Quote: "Protesters are demanding greater democracy and an inquiry into alleged police brutality during past demonstrations."
Jesus, do Donie O'Sullivan and Kevin Collier, article authors even have a slight idea what HK protests are about? Those protests started to oppose a bill regarding extraditing to mainland China. Later on as the tension and police brutality escalated those points were added. Here is the 5 points the protesters are demanding now:
1- the bill must be withdrawn (this was the initial motive for protests)
2- the chief executive must resign (he ordered to police to start retaliatons)
3- the government must retract its characterisation of the violent clashes as “riots”
4- there must be a full independent inquiry into the actions of the police
5- everyone arrested in respect of the clashes must be unconditionally freed.
> Everything you quoted makes it sound like an overtly anti-freedom power grab meant to meet a minimum of resistance, and implemented specifically to control protestors at an event that was planned for months.
I agree that that is the government's intention. I'm not sure the police are that smart.
> I'm not sure what you're trying to say with "I'm not a supporter of the current government BUT" - it seems like the quote explains perfectly how bad it is.
In pointing to a commentary that hypothesises that the rapid introduction of the legal powers may partly explain the police's heavy-handed behaviour, I'm not trying to excuse either the govt or the police. The may be multiple factors at work here: government authoritarianism, police complicity with that authoritarianism, and also police confusion.
> especially when there are so many violent protestors
You're just doubling down on it. The protests were completely peaceful for months, and even then police already were displaying wanton brutality. To blame this on the victims is expected as it is invalid.
> If HK police have the same protocol as US police, many extreme violent protestors would have already faced a much more serious consequence.
Just a bunch, there's hundreds more. And yes, I'm also are of violent excesses of protesters, these do not ever justify what the cops are doing. And even with all the issues US police has, this isn't even remotely in the same ball park.
> while the "friends of HK" western media would be more than ok to watch HK burn
You're right now excusing police brutality, you don't get to point fingers like that. Nobody wants to see HK burn, I want to government to react with something OTHER than violence to what are perfectly reasonable demands, and I want the supporters of said violence to stop with the sophistry, while pretending they're the ones against violence*, against HK being a depraved place where the elderly and children get brutalized just because other people have no backbone.
> Instead, you have a situation where the police to abandon a precinct all at once and not long after, far-right groups start showing up at night to stoke violence.
Do you have any references to support that? It flies in the face of everything I've observed so far but in all sincerely, given the extreme polarisation in how these events are being reported by seemingly all parties, I'd not be at all surprised to find I've missed something important and would appreciate a source to clear things up for me.
> One thought that comes to mind is that I'm sure the most heavily armed nation in the world could have gotten rid of these people in no time, but perhaps they didn't because of the symbolism of the location.
Oh no, the police let them through, there's clips showing they literally opened the gates, pictures of them taking selfies, etc. It's the "blue lives matter" subculture within those groups, where the police think they're on their side and the protestors think the police is on their side. The policemen involved should be fired and charged with dereliction of duty and conspiracy or something like that. Of course, there should have been a lot more (riot) police active as well, since it was known in advance it was going to be a bad protest.
> It's still not clear why they would enter a BK (full of tear gas, according to the journalist) while at least some of the surrounding roads were free.
It's also not clear why you're excusing police brutality, but you're still doing it.
> I've been in these kind of protests before, you can tell well in advance that things are going to get ugly.
That's all true, but doesn't excuse the police brutality.
> When you have police being attacked from all sides and you intend no harm, you know it's time to gtfo because you will get caught up in the violence.
Oh, so they didn't means you can deduce they "meant to cause harm", and that in turn excuses the harm we see?
Without reviewing the video, again (I watched it several times, but not in the last few minutes), I do recall officers repositioning a fence section in a way that allows the mob through, but on reflection that could be a shrewd psychological tactic: if the crowd can walk past the fence piece without grabbing and moving it, they (or at least the front line in close contact with officers) may be less likely to grab it to move and, having hold of it, decide to use it as battering weapon against the outnumbered officers.
> They are calmly walking because breaking into a jog could incite the mob further.
Right, and while some are turning they back on the main crowd, its mixed, and that is necessary because, again, there are already groups of rioters in their rear.
While it looks bad at first glance, I think it is quite likely the least-bad response by that group of officers to a situation that is well and truly FUBAR.
> There's been other instances today where police was just looking to fight protestors
And protestors obviously looking to fight police. They swarmed the other officers partner who was being beaten on the ground and he was next.
I find it shocking so many people were expecting him to just take it the beating or 'run away' and leave his partner there.
There's a very good argument for having police on the streets when there's protestors running around throwing petrol bombs and swinging metal pipes. This is basic civil society 101 stuff. I'm not convinced the solution to China's totalitarianism is random street violence and property destruction by teenagers.
> If the state wants people to respect the laws and remain peaceful, it needs to clean its own house of violent criminals first.
No, the people demand that everyone respect the laws and remain peaceful.
To that end, the people fund and enact a police force to protect life and property, and to apprehend suspected criminals.
I don’t think it’s accurate to say that “some of the protestors have turned violent.” There is a contingent which is using violence as a specific strategy, against property and against police as well as bystanders who may not agree with them.
> but today they might let the protest get a bit wild if they want to allow the protesters a bit of leeway, and then those untrained, poorly equipped policemen will be screwed.
I'd say most often than not, when a government lets a protest get wild it's because they want to justify the harsh repression that's coming or at least that when the time comes for decision, they won't side with the protestors.
Or they're just in over their head but in that case, they don't let it get wild, they just loose control.
>Ottawa police were unable or unwilling to tackle the protest
I have yet to hear a plausible explanation for why this was.
I am very uncomfortable with the idea that the police declining to do their job is sufficient to emergency powers.
There should be proportionate responses to illegal behavior. Not even attempting to regulate illegal behavior with the appropriate government response should not be a justification for more severe government response.
> Tear gas and rubber bullets against, at the start, peaceful protesters. not okay tools.
Correct from your perspective.
I don't think it was used when the gathering was peaceful unless it was area denial. I think there's some or all of property damage, arson, looting, arming and throwing, before they use those tools.
Interested to see a video with context from the current unrest where that's not the case.
By hand to hand, I mean the stuff that happens when police and gatherers engage at close quarters.
There's lots of these scenes from the HK unrest. it basically is hand-to-hand combat with batons like I said.
What chaos? The scene shown in the video looks really calm, with one protester, several reporters, and a very large number of police standing around apparently doing nothing more than looking intimidating at that moment.
> your King was also having protesters jailed for holding blank signs
He was not personally doing this. The decision to arrest protesters comes down to the police present at the time, and I believe there was no arrest in the case to which you are referring. Specifically a single person holding a blank sign outside of parliament who was approached and questioned by a police officer but not arrested. I believe there where also subsequent protests involving blank signs, but no arrests for those either.
It always shocks me how readily people from other countries take a republican position in matters which really do not concern them. The right to protest in the UK has been degraded as a direct result of our elected government, rather than because of some nebulous power held by the king.
> Also - the 'protestor' was carrying a weapon and acting directly against state authorities. If someone in my neighbourhood had a gun, was standing on the street trying to prod police officers, I would definitely want the police to be checking him out.
That is the basic definition of a "protest": to prod the authorities. It is a basic right in any free society.
> That said, I don't know if he was actually breaking any laws.
Which is the crux of the matter. The cops should just STFU and move along.
> This is a chilling and dangerous responsibility to burden protestors with:
No it’s not. It’s simply a reality. The way the chose to protest facilitated the looting. When the looting started they could have ended the protest and summoned the police.
You seem to be conflating legal liability with responsibility. I’m not saying they should be prosecuted.
I’m saying that it’s just a mental fantasy to pretend they don’t bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
> are we to argue that every single person who protested peacefully outside of the Capitol on J6 is responsible for the rioters and insurrectionists who stormed in?
Sure - once it became a riot, if people stuck around and got in the way of the police, they certainly bear responsibility.
> They did, after all, interfere with the police response and
Yes, and they are responsible for thst.
> provide moral support for the single greatest outrage against our government in nearly two centuries.
Moral support is a different matter.
> Our cultural and legal standards of free speech enshrine protest, and ensure that protestors are not vilified for actions that are not theirs.
Preventing police from doing the job of protecting business from being looted is their action.
> I do not think we should undermine that.
Blocking police from doing their jobs is not speech.
Nobody is talking about limiting free speech or protests. That’s a red-herring.
> the police do need to take more definitive action when other methods have failed.
Apply this logic to the protesters. There have been many examples of attempts at change without violence. I don’t like this, but I see why it is happening.
>the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith
Seems fairly accurate. I'm just annoyed that many people can't grasp that awful police behavior and awful behavior from other actors are not mutually exclusive. There is lots of unjustified police violence and provocations against perfectly peaceful protestors. There is also systematic vandalism and arson by people who aren't peaceful protestors. And there is massive amounts of opportunistic vandalism and looting. All three can and do co-exist.
This is not a two-sided conflict. More like three- or four- sided mess.
I personally thinks this comes after there were more confrontations before, and there was a lot of public outcry over the use of force. (It being justified or not)
There was initially a large police presence inside the parliament (LegCo), but they all retreated after protestors became increasingly violent, I think it was mostly a tactical decision, it would've been impossible for the police to push back, so all they could do was hold their grounds. If protestors stormed in while the police was still there, it would've been a very difficult and violent confrontations. So I think they decided to fall back, and give protestors space.
And from previous protests, the police has never held back, they've always cracked down once the protests got out of control, don't really see what they would do so now, and just one time.
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