• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Thursday, July 17, 2025
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

Bloody Battle as Hong Kong Protesters and Opponents Clash in Streets

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
08/06/19
in Featured, World
Police fires tear gas at protestors in Hong Kong.

Police fires tear gas at protestors in Hong Kong. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Armed with wooden poles and ransacked road signs, pro-democracy protesters and their opponents fought an extraordinary battle on a Hong Kong street, exposing deep ideological fault lines coursing through the city.

Dozens of unidentified men charged onto a road where protesters had been walking and attacked them with long wooden poles on Monday night.

The shocking scenes – captured on film – showed the demonstrators fighting back against the men, pelting them with traffic cones and even turning their aggressors’ weapons against them.

Cars, including taxis and a Mercedes-Benz, were also caught up in the melees as both sides fought over street fencing dividing the thoroughfare.

The men were eventually chased away, with protesters smashing the windows of a nearby building where they believed some of the attackers had taken refuge as a man inside brandished a meat cleaver.

The clashes illustrate the polarization of Hong Kong after two months of pro-democracy protests and clashes that pose the biggest threat to Beijing’s authority since Hong Kong’s handover from the British in 1997.

North Point, a district on the main island where the clashes took place, was historically a communist stronghold during British rule.

Topshots: Riot police clash with pro-democracy protesters on August 5 on the streets of Hong Kong

📸 Isaac Lawrence and Philip Fong pic.twitter.com/wQV4TaMX4I

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 6, 2019

It is known for its large community of Fujianese people who migrated from the mainland province in the 1960s and have long maintained strong family and clan links there.

The city also witnessed a rare general strike Monday with activists disrupting vital rush-hour commuter train services and blocking major roads.

That sparked other flashpoint clashes from people either opposed to the protests or that day’s disruption.

One video, verified by AFP, showed a car smashing its way through a protester roadblock in the northern town of Yuen Long.

Another showed a taxi ramming protesters who hurled projectiles as it sped by.

Troubled Past 

During the 1967 leftist riots – in which more than 50 people died – North Point was often the epicenter of the violence.

Police famously landed by helicopter on the roof of an apartment building and discovered a leftist headquarters.

The riots were sparked by widespread social discontent towards the colonial government over widespread corruption and poverty. But they were also fuelled by the influence of the Cultural Revolution which was raging on the mainland at the time.

Late on a Monday night.

Hong Kong still marches.#FreedomHK

pic.twitter.com/yyFpvVzxO1

— Read Let This Radicalize You (@JoshuaPHilll) August 6, 2019

Popular opinion soon turned against the leftists who left hundreds of bombs across the city and murdered a well-known anti-communist radio commentator. Two young children were killed by a bomb left in North Point.

Monday’s clashes in North Point took place during the most sustained and widespread day of battles with Hong Kong police, who fired 800 tear gas canisters in at least a dozen locations and made 148 arrests.

After sunset, messaging forums used by anti-government protesters began circulating pictures of unidentified men holding sticks standing on North Point’s streets.

The scenes were reminiscent of shocking violence two weeks ago when suspected triad members in white T-shirts, armed with poles and batons, set upon anti-government protesters and bystanders at a train station in the town of Yuen Long close to the Chinese border.

The men in North Point weren’t dressed alike, and unlike the Yuen Long assailants – who ambushed their targets and hospitalized 45 people – they were soon bested.


More on the Subject

‘Revolution of Our Times:’ Hong Kong Protests Not Just About Extradition Bill Anymore

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Lai Ching-te attends an inaugural ceremony as president of Taiwan
Featured

China’s ‘Growing Authoritarianism’ Won’t Stop With Taiwan: Lai

by Staff Writer with AFP
August 29, 2024
A protester reacts from tear gas fired by police during a 2019 pro-democracy march in Hong Kong
Democracy at Risk

Rare Hong Kong Protest Sounds Alarm on New Security Law

by Staff Writer with AFP
February 27, 2024
Chinese President Xi Jinping listens to a speech
World

Pacific Nation Nauru Cuts Ties to Taiwan, Switches to China

by Staff Writer with AFP
January 16, 2024
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen
Democracy at Risk

Possible Scenarios for a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

by Staff Writer
January 9, 2024
Doctors attended to quake survivors with mild injuries at the Jishishan County People's Hospital
World

China Quake Survivors Recover in Hospitals as Toll Rises to 135

by Staff Writer with AFP
December 21, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping
World

China Announces ‘Strategic Partnership’ With Syria

by Staff Writer
September 22, 2023
Next Post
Israeli settler standing guard in the occupied West Bank town of al-Khalil (Hebron) on November 3, 2018

Israel Advances Plans for More Than 2,300 Settlement Homes: NGO

People in front of a screen displaying Microsoft

Microsoft and Privacy Policies: Never-Ending Tale?

Recommended

People from Nordic countries participate in the 2025 WorldPride DC parade and celebrate LGBTQ rights in Washington DC, USA, Saturday, June 7, 2025.

Sweden Cuts Red Tape for Changing Legal Gender

July 16, 2025
Ursula von der Leyen

EU Ministers Weigh Response to Latest Trump Tariff Threat

July 14, 2025
UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese

UN Says US Sanctions on Expert Sets ‘Dangerous Precedent,’ Must Be Reversed

July 11, 2025
Women in Afghanistan wearing a blue burqa

ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders Over Persecution of Women

July 9, 2025
Kenya, Nairobi, 2024-07-16. Protesters in the streets

Nairobi Tense as Kenya Marks Democracy Uprising

July 7, 2025
President Donald Trump

Trump Wins ‘Phenomenal’ Victory as Congress Passes Flagship Bill

July 4, 2025

Opinion

Donald Trump

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

June 18, 2025
Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
A Black Lives Matter mural in New York City.

Fuhgeddaboudit! America’s Erasure of History

April 2, 2025
Bust of Deputy Rubens Paiva in the Chamber of Deputies

Democratic Brazilians Are Still Here

March 18, 2025
A woman from Guatemala

Dispatch From Central America

January 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump

Dear Trump Supporters: Is This the America You Wanted?

January 28, 2025
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post