News / China

Hong Kong protesters stage flash mob rallies

Sunday, 13 October 2019 11:13 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 13 October 2019 11:19 AM ]

People attend a flash mob rally inside a shopping mall in the Sha Tin district of Hong Kong, on October 13, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Groups of individuals in Hong Kong have staged flash mob protests across the city’s shopping districts on the 19th week of unrest in the Chinese city.

The protests were staged in multiple neighborhoods in the financial hub on Sunday, with protesters blocking roads with barricades, spraying graffiti on the buildings of businesses perceived as pro-China, and smashing shop windows.

Chanting slogans such as “Free Hong Kong,” the protesters staged a cat-and-mouse game with riot police in several shopping malls. They dispersed among weekend shoppers just as police arrived.

Hong Kong police arrive and begin to clear away a barricade left by protesters in the Tai Koo area of Hong Kong, on October 13, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

In one incident, a group of 50 ostensible shoppers inside a mall confronted riot police forces who were outside the mall doors, chanting “Hong Kong police [are] mafia.”

Several arrests were made in the Sunday protests.

The semi-autonomous Chinese territory has been the scene of protests since June, when people took to the streets initially against a proposed extradition bill.

The bill was later withdrawn, but the protests not only continued but also took on an increasingly violent form, with masked individuals vandalizing public and private property and attacking security forces and government buildings.

Hong Kong police detain a man outside a shopping center in the Tai Koo area of Hong Kong, on October 13, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, warned last week that the city’s businesses faced “a severe winter season.”

The Chinese government says Western countries, mainly the United States and Britain, have been provoking the protesters by issuing statements of support. Beijing has asked those countries to stop meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs.

Hong Kong has been governed under a “one-country, two-system” model since the city, a former British colony, was returned to China in 1997.

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