Chinese state media’s tough line on HK: bring the mob to justice

Chinese state-run media has called for a ‘tougher line’ on democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

A volunteer medic attends to a wounded Andrew Chiu. Picture: AP

Chinese state-run media has called for a “tougher line” on democracy protesters in Hong Kong after a weekend of ­violence over Beijing’s plans to ­tighten control over the semi-autonomous city.

Hardcore demonstrators in the financial hub smashed the windows of the official Xinhua news agency’s regional bureau on Saturday, capping another ­weekend of unrest that also ended with scores of arrests and a gruesome attack on a pro-democracy politician.

“Intensifying violence in Hong Kong calls for tougher line to ­restore order,” the state-run China Daily, an English-language newspaper, said in an editorial.

The protesters “court the indulgence extended to them by ­friendly local and Western media outlets, while seeking to silence those trying to put the protests in the spotlight of truth. They are doomed to fail simply because their violence will encounter the full weight of the law.”

The nationalist tabloid Global Times called in an editorial on Sunday for “Hong Kong’s law enforcement agencies to bring the mob to justice as soon as possible” for vandalising Xinhua’s office.

Neither editorial mentioned a knife attack on Sunday in Tai Koo Shing, a middle-class neighbourhood on Hong Kong’s main island where a rally had been taking place, which left at least five ­people wounded.

A Mandarin-speaking man ­attacked people on Sunday ­shortly after shouting pro-Beijing slogans.

Andrew Chiu, a local pro-democracy district councillor, had his ear bitten off after trying to subdue the attacker, while a ­second man was seen unconscious in a pool of blood as bystanders desperately tried to stem wounds to his back.

The knifeman was then beaten by protesters armed with sticks.

Further demonstrations are planned this week as protesters keep up pressure for demands such as an independent inquiry into police behaviour and the adoption of universal suffrage. “Civil servants are ashamed of the crimes committed by the Hong Kong police force and the dictatorship of the Hong Kong government,” said the Citizens’ Press Conference, a pro-democracy group that planned a Monday night discussion on the clashes.

The city has been rocked by months of unrest from protesters who say those rights are being rolled back by an increasingly ­authoritarian Chinese rule.

Beijing warned on Friday after a four-day meeting of Communist Party leaders that it would not tolerate any challenges to its authority over Hong Kong, while laying out plans to boost patriotism in the city and change how its leader is chosen or removed.

The China Daily also noted that the party planned to strengthen Hong Kong’s legal system to “safeguard national ­security”. “Those Hong Kong residents whose lives have been disrupted by the intensifying violence of intimidation — instigated and organised by those hoping to use Hong Kong as a means to destabilise the nation — will be glad when life returns to normal,” it said.

AFP, Reuters