Hong Kong protests: tens of thousands return to streets after days of calm as radicals trash shops with mainland China links
- Peaceful march in Kowloon descends into chaos, ending the near-two-week hiatus of extreme protest violence
- Rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets fired by police in Whampoa, where mobs smash up stores for their mainland connections
Tens of thousands of Hongkongers returned to the streets on Sunday a week after the pro-democracy camp’s landslide election victory, but their procession rapidly descended into stand-offs with police and, by nightfall, mobs once again trashed shops with mainland China links.
After nearly two weeks of relative calm, chaos returned to the Kowloon side of the city by evening, as a group of protesters hurled bricks and police fired tear gas, while radicals set about smashing restaurants and shops in Whampoa and vandalised the exits of the railway station there.
They unleashed the destruction after a peaceful march that began in the tourist district of Tsim Sha Tsui with crowds of protesters, many of them in their trademark all-black gear but also including families with children, streaming onto the waterfront promenade.
An hour after the march began, police said a group of protesters set off smoke bombs that in turn prompted the force to fire tear gas into the densely packed columns of people marching and spilling onto the roads.
As the evening wore on, stand-offs again erupted between hard-core activists and police in Whampoa, a middle-class residential district next to the march’s endpoint in Hung Hom. At least three protesters were arrested.
Among the shops targeted in the district were Japanese restaurant brand Yoshinoya, snack chain Best Mart 360 and China Mobile.
