How a tiny minority of asylum seekers in Hong Kong are giving South Asians a bad name
Those resorting to crime bring unwanted attention to local ethnic minorities
There used to be a time when gang violence and street brawls in Hong Kong were the exclusive domain of Chinese triad gangsters.
On the night of April 29, at a playground in one of the city’s poorest districts, it was all-out war between two gangs of Indian men. Around 40 were involved in the fracas, wielding knives, golf clubs and glass bottles, as the battle spilled out of a playground and into the streets over what police said was a trivial matter.
Then, just three days later, another street fight erupted among more than 20 men identified as South Asians at a road junction, only 100 metres from the Sham Shui Po police station.
As with any other group in Hong Kong’s ethnic mix, there are good and bad eggs among the South Asian community, but there is a genuine concern that those from the subcontinent are being unfairly tarred with the same brush when thugs among them make headline news.