Around 250 people were arrested across Hong Kong Wednesday, as sporadic protests were met by a massive police presence and zero tolerance approach, with pepper spray, kettling and searches used to quickly contain any potential unrest.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, police said around 180 people had been arrested „on suspicion of participating in an unauthorized assembly,“ in parts of Causeway Bay and Central. Police said people „occupied the nearby roads and blocked traffic,“ disrupting „social peace.“ They also released a photo showing dozens of people seated inside a police kettle, most of whom appear to be young and wearing regular clothes, rather than the heavy protest gear seen in previous unrest.
Compared to last year, when lunchtime protests were a semi-regular sight ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, often involving white collar business workers, police demonstrated far less tolerance for any obstruction of roads or other minor disruption. Police were seen detaining people for shouting protest slogans and displaying banners, and one police liaison officer told a crowd in Central through a loudspeaker: „After eating lunch, go back to your normal life and don’t stand here anymore.“
National security law
Wednesday’s protests came in the wake of the newly proposed national security and anti-sedition laws for Hong Kong, which Beijing announced last week it will impose directly on the city in the coming weeks, bypassing the local legislature, via a rarely-enacted constitutional backdoor.
