Hong Kong reporter with Epoch Times newspaper attacked with baseball bat
- The 49-year-old victim had just left home when a man jumped from a luxury car and repeatedly hit her legs
- The assault comes less than a month after a gang of men armed with hammers damaged the paper’s printing facility
A Hong Kong journalist with a newspaper linked to the Falun Gong spiritual group banned by the Chinese government was beaten with a baseball bat in a brazen attack in Kowloon on Tuesday, sparking a citywide police manhunt for two perpetrators.
The assault on The Epoch Times reporter came almost a month after its Tsuen Wan printing plant was damaged by a gang of men. According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the victim is also the chairwoman of a local Falun Gong organisation.
The 49-year-old victim said one of the culprits jumped out of a black Mercedes-Benz and hit her repeatedly with the bat just after she had left her residential block near the campus of Open University on Good Shepherd Street in Ho Man Tin shortly after 11.30am. The man attacked her without warning, she said.
“I was beaten on the legs about 10 times. He only targeted my legs in the attack,” she said.
The culprit fled in the same car after the assault, which lasted about one minute, she added.
Police arrived after she made a report and although officers scouted the area, no arrests were made.