Just Saying | There’s no silent majority in Hong Kong, only a terrified minority while the rest are fine with mob rule and anarchy
- Yonden Lhatoo questions the narrative that most Hongkongers are opposed to protest violence, as hardly anyone speaks out against the systematic destruction of what was once a great city
I was stranded in our Causeway Bay office with my late-shift colleagues after putting the paper to bed on Friday night, thanks to democracy.
The company had arranged emergency hotel accommodation for us, but we all wanted to go home after a particularly hard day at work. Only, there were no vehicles on the streets, and complete chaos had taken over as the freedom fighters on the front lines of the great “revolution of our times” went about “liberating” Hong Kong in an orgy of unfettered violence, vandalism and anarchy.
For hours after the government invoked a draconian colonial-era law to announce a midnight ban on the wearing of face masks at all protests – and then did absolutely nothing to enforce it – unhinged youngsters in, yes, masks, went on a rampage across the city, trashing and burning MTR stations, shops, bank outlets and other public or private property.
Anyone who got in their way was beaten to a pulp, and in one notably shocking incident, a rioter grabbed a handgun dropped by a lone plain-clothes policeman as they attempted to lynch him and burn him with petrol bombs. The officer managed to snatch the gun back and prevent a real tragedy.
Rioters were allowed to run amok with impunity for hours in my own neighbourhood of Hung Hom. A colleague on the ground, who watched them exercise to extremes the very freedoms they claim to have been deprived of, said there was not a single police officer in sight the entire time as they yelled, “Where are you? We are breaking the law! Come and arrest us if you dare!”