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Hong Kong: 70-year-old street cleaner killed in clashes as pro-Beijing minister 'seriously harmed' in London protest

Chief executive Carrie Lam describes London incident, in which her justice minister fell and hurt her hand, as a 'barbaric' attack 

Adam Withnall
Asia Editor
Friday 15 November 2019 09:37 GMT
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Hong Kong police treat man killed by brick as murder

A man has died after being hit in the head by a projectile during Hong Kong protests and a minister has been injured during a clash with demonstrators in London, as chaotic rallies paralysed the Chinese city for a fifth consecutive day on Friday.

Videos shared on social media showed an elderly street cleaner being hit on the head by what appeared to be a brick thrown by masked protesters.

Authorities said the 70-year-old died of his injuries on Thursday night. The Hong Kong government expressed outrage, calling it a “malicious act of the rioters”, and police said they were treating it as a murder investigation.

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department expressed profound sadness at the death of one of its workers, and said it was providing assistance to his family.

It came one week after the first confirmed death in the clashes, a student protester who fell from the third floor of a multi-storey car park during a police dispersal operation. On Monday, a protester was shot in the abdomen by a police officer and a man arguing in support of Beijing was set on fire in the street.

Meanwhile, both the Chinese and devolved Hong Kong governments on Friday issued strong statements decrying an incident in the UK involving the Hong Kong justice secretary Teresa Cheng.

Ms Cheng was at an event in London on Thursday, promoting Hong Kong as a hub for dispute resolution and deal-making, when she was surrounded by a group of protesters shouting slogans such as “murderer” and “shameful”.

The justice secretary is an unpopular figure in her own right among the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, having played a key role in pushing forward chief executive Carrie Lam’s controversial extradition bill - one of the main triggers for the months-long unrest.

Video of the incident shows Ms Cheng falling as she tries to make her way through the crowd of protesters, before her security guards regain control of the situation.

The Chinese embassy in the UK said Ms Cheng was pushed, and that she had sustained an injury to her hand as she fell.

The Hong Kong government said she had suffered “serious bodily harm”, while Ms Lam called the incident a “barbaric” attack.

“[Ms Cheng] was besieged and attacked by dozens of anti-China and pro-independence activists," the Chinese embassy said in a statement. The incident showed that the "violent and lawless perpetrators" were now taking their violence abroad, it said.

Beijing said it had lodged a formal complaint with the UK and urged British authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It was the most direct physical confrontation between protesters and any senior members of Ms Lam’s administration since the demonstrations escalated in June. The pro-democracy movement is demanding the city’s civil liberties and autonomy be protected from perceived encroachment by Beijing.

Friday again saw a flash mob emerge in the central business district while office workers were on their lunch breaks.

City traders and businessmen and women wearing banned face masks chanted “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time”, before returning to work.

The scenes of orderly but impassioned protesting in Central each day this working week show the protest movement continues to receive deep support from the general public, and run counter to the Chinese media narrative that paints all pro-democracy supporters as “rioters”.

A 31-year-old office worker who only gave her name as Nicole told the Reuters news agency: “Things that happened in these few months have made people heartbroken.

“The government only came out to condemn rioters ... They have never thought why so many rioters have emerged in our city and why ordinary citizens support them,” she said.

Hong Kong is due to hold local elections on 24 November, and opposition politicians have accused the authorities of deliberately intensifying clashes between police and protesters in order to build a pretence for cancelling the polls.

Protesters at the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus, the epicentre for clashes this week just outside the city, said they would resume their blockade of a major motorway out of town and other unspecified consequences if the government did not commit to hold the elections as scheduled.

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