Protesters shine light on arrest of Hong Kong student with new kind of laser rally
- Hundreds gather outside Hong Kong Space Museum to protest arrest of Baptist University student Keith Fong
- Student was stopped by off-duty officers after buying 10 laser pointers which police say have been used to attack them
Hundreds gathered outside the Hong Kong Space Museum on Wednesday night for a new kind of protest, shining laser beams on its dome to condemn the arrest of a Baptist University student leader for possessing handheld pointers of the kind regularly used against police by protesters.
The rally came hours after police defended the arrest of the student, by demonstrating how the pointers, which they referred to as “laser guns”, were powerful enough burn a hole in a sheet of paper from a short distance in 10 seconds.
Police said three officers had required hospital treatment after protesters flashed laser beams at them.
It was the second protest since Keith Fong Chung-yin, 20, who heads Baptist University’s students’ union, was arrested by five off-duty officers at around 7.30pm on Tuesday, after he spent HK$4,200 (US$536) to buy 10 of the pointers from a stall in Apliu Street, Sham Shui Po.
More than 1,000 protesters, including students from the university, besieged the Sham Shui Po Police Station on Tuesday night, and officers later fired about 20 rounds of tear gas to clear the crowd, who sprayed paint on the building’s walls, and hurled bricks and glass bottles into the complex.