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A 14-year-old boy has been shot in the thigh amid widespread demonstrations in Hong Kong against a ban on face masks – the second shooting in four days, and since pro-democracy protests began in June.
Hong Kong police chiefs have admitted it was likely a plainclothes police officer's bullet that hit the boy, leaving him seriously injured in hospital.
"He fired the gunshot in self-defense," a spokeswoman told media.
The government had previously said in a statement that the officer fired a single shot in self-defense Friday night after a large group of protesters attacked him in the northern Yuen Long district.
A riot officer also shot an 18-year-old youth at close range during widespread violence Tuesday.
The shooting comes after Hong Kong's embattled leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years in a dramatic move intended to quell escalating violence in the Chinese-ruled city.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (L) gives a press conference at the Central Government Headquarters in Hong Kong, China. (AAP)
Lam, speaking at a news conference on Friday, said a ban on face masks would take effect on Saturday (local time) under the emergency laws that allow authorities to "make any regulations whatsoever" in whatever they deem to be in the public interest.
"Almost all protesters wear masks, with the intention of hiding their identity. That's why they have become more unbridled," she said.
"We can't keep the existing regulations idle and let violence escalate and the situation continue to deteriorate."
Lam described the territory as being in serious danger, but not in a state of emergency. She insisted on Friday that the measure and her use of rarely deployed emergency powers to introduce it without legislative approval were not steps toward authoritarian rule or at the behest of the Chinese government.
The emergency laws allow curfews, censorship of the media, control of harbours, ports and transport, although Lam did not specify any particular action that might follow, beyond the mask ban.
But the introduction of emergency powers did not deter the protesters.
Pro-democracy protesters march on a street as they take part in a rally in Causeway Bay district on October 4, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Getty)
On Saturday, in a second televised address after another night of rampaging violence she decried as "a very dark day", Lam said Hong Kong had been "semi-paralysed" and was in the grips of "unprecedented violence."
All Hong Kong subway and train services were suspended, and shops closed as the territory dusted itself off and started marching again.
Lam defended the legality of the measure denounced by government critics and demonstrators, and said that "to protect citizens' daily lives and freedoms, I cannot allow the small minority of rioters to destroy that."
"Everyone is worried and scared," she said.
Many were fired up, too.
Shielded under umbrellas, many wearing masks, a cortege of hundreds of demonstrators clogged a thoroughfare in the central business district, carrying a yellow banner marked
"Glory to Hong Kong" and shouting: "Hong Kong, resist!"
A protester with a mask stands near other protesters moving a statue depicting a protester armed with gas mask, helmet and umbrella on the streets of Hong Kong. (AP)
The closure of the entire MTR network that handles more than 4 million trips a day, including the express line to the Hong Kong international airport, caused major and quite exceptional disruption to the usually never-resting but now edgy and restive territory of 7.5 million people.
"From MTR to EmptyR," tweeted activist Joshua Wong, a key player in 2014 protests that foreshadowed the past four months of demonstrations. Snowballing into a sustained outburst of anti-government and anti-China fury, the youth-led protests have plunged the international hub for trade and finance into its deepest crisis since the territory reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
A message on the MTR website cited staff safety and the need for repairs among reasons for the closure.
After widespread arson attacks, looting, fighting with police and beatings, the government
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in other parts of the territory on Friday.
"The anti-mask law has become a tool of tyranny," said Samuel Yeung, an 18-year-old university student in Central.
"They can make use of the emergency law to enact any policies or laws that the government wants. There's no rule of law anymore. We can only be united and protest."
Many protesters wear masks to hide their identity due to fears employers could face pressure to take action against them.
Pro-Beijing groups had been pushing for a mask ban but it was not clear how the government would implement it in a city where many of its 7.4 million residents wear them every day to protect against infection following the outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
Police can stop anyone in public and ask them to remove a mask if the officer believes it may prevent identification, according to the law. Exceptions are made if the person wearing a mask can prove they need it for medical, religious or professional reasons.
Offenders face a maximum fine of HK$25,000 ($A4700) and imprisonment for a year, according to details of the prohibition published by the government.
appealed for a public shift in attitude a
gainst rioting.
Pro-democracy protesters set a fire at the entrance of the MTR station during a demonstration at Causeway Bay district on October 4, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Getty)
John Lee, the government's security secretary, said by not condemning violence, people are stoking it.
"What is adding oil to violence is people's support for these acts," he said. "What is important is that everybody comes out to say, 'No, society will not accept violence."'
But even many peaceful protesters say violence has become a means to an end, the only way for young masked protesters to force the government to bend.
As a group of black-clad youths in protective gear rushed past him, many carrying bamboo sticks, a property industry worker who came out with his wife Friday night to show his opposition to the mask ban expressed his admiration for those confronting police.
"I know they have done terrible things" he said. "Can you believe how brave they are?"
He gave only his first name, Alex. He and his wife, Pauline, both donned masks that covered their mouths to hit streets in central Hong Kong where clouds of police tear gas to disperse protesters also caused spluttering tourists and Friday night revellers to flee, eyes stinging.
Protesters set cardboard boxes on fire at the entrance to the Causeway Bay Subway station in Hong Kong. (AP)
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in other parts of the territory on Friday.
"The anti-mask law has become a tool of tyranny," said Samuel Yeung, an 18-year-old university student in Central.
"They can make use of the emergency law to enact any policies or laws that the government wants. There's no rule of law anymore. We can only be united and protest."
Many protesters wear masks to hide their identity due to fears employers could face pressure to take action against them.
Pro-Beijing groups had been pushing for a mask ban but it was not clear how the government would implement it in a city where many of its 7.4 million residents wear them every day to protect against infection following the outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
Police can stop anyone in public and ask them to remove a mask if the officer believes it may prevent identification, according to the law. Exceptions are made if the person wearing a mask can prove they need it for medical, religious or professional reasons.
Offenders face a maximum fine of HK$25,000 ($A4700) and imprisonment for a year, according to details of the prohibition published by the government.
Protesters march on a street in Hong Kong. (AP)
Protesters hide behind umbrellas as they form a barricade to block a road in Hong Kong on Friday, October 4. (AP)
Four months of anti-government protests have plunged Hong Kong into its biggest political crisis since its handover from Britain to Beijing in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula granting it autonomy.
"This is the next significant miscalculation," said Phill Hynes, head of political risk and analysis at ISS Risk, shortly before the widely expected introduction of the emergency laws.
A protester is confronted by riot police during a massive demonstration outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong (AAP)
"The next will be barring certain candidates from running in District Council elections. Both will nicely inflame tensions and increase protests and actions."
Pro-democracy campaigners condemned Lam's decision.
"This is an ancient, colonial set of regulations, and you don't use them unless you can't legislate anymore," said Martin Lee, a veteran activist and one of the city's most prominent lawyers. "Once you start, there's no end to it."
The UN human rights office said Hong Kong must protect the right to freedom of assembly and Britain urged its former colony not to aggravate tension.
China said it supports Lam's move to ban anti-government protesters from wearing face-masks, state television CCTV reported.
Riot police move forwards as anti-government protestors occupied a road in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019. A Hong Kong police official says a pro-democracy protester was shot when an officer opened fire with his revolver during clashes Tuesday. A video of the incident, filmed by the City University Student Union and shared on social media, shows a dozen black-clad protesters hurling objects at a group of riot police pursuing them. One officer, who was surrounded, drew his revolver and pointed (AP/AAP)
Yang Guang, spokesman for China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said the chaotic situation in Hong Kong cannot continue indefinitely, and that Hong Kong has reached a critical moment.
Yang said the protests were evolving into a revolution with foreign intervention.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/hong...g-stance/31fc5a62-0182-4247-bb83-caceaf28a33c
Hong Kong police chiefs have admitted it was likely a plainclothes police officer's bullet that hit the boy, leaving him seriously injured in hospital.
"He fired the gunshot in self-defense," a spokeswoman told media.
The government had previously said in a statement that the officer fired a single shot in self-defense Friday night after a large group of protesters attacked him in the northern Yuen Long district.
A riot officer also shot an 18-year-old youth at close range during widespread violence Tuesday.
The shooting comes after Hong Kong's embattled leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years in a dramatic move intended to quell escalating violence in the Chinese-ruled city.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (L) gives a press conference at the Central Government Headquarters in Hong Kong, China. (AAP)
Lam, speaking at a news conference on Friday, said a ban on face masks would take effect on Saturday (local time) under the emergency laws that allow authorities to "make any regulations whatsoever" in whatever they deem to be in the public interest.
"Almost all protesters wear masks, with the intention of hiding their identity. That's why they have become more unbridled," she said.
"We can't keep the existing regulations idle and let violence escalate and the situation continue to deteriorate."
Lam described the territory as being in serious danger, but not in a state of emergency. She insisted on Friday that the measure and her use of rarely deployed emergency powers to introduce it without legislative approval were not steps toward authoritarian rule or at the behest of the Chinese government.
The emergency laws allow curfews, censorship of the media, control of harbours, ports and transport, although Lam did not specify any particular action that might follow, beyond the mask ban.
But the introduction of emergency powers did not deter the protesters.
Pro-democracy protesters march on a street as they take part in a rally in Causeway Bay district on October 4, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Getty)
On Saturday, in a second televised address after another night of rampaging violence she decried as "a very dark day", Lam said Hong Kong had been "semi-paralysed" and was in the grips of "unprecedented violence."
All Hong Kong subway and train services were suspended, and shops closed as the territory dusted itself off and started marching again.
Lam defended the legality of the measure denounced by government critics and demonstrators, and said that "to protect citizens' daily lives and freedoms, I cannot allow the small minority of rioters to destroy that."
"Everyone is worried and scared," she said.
Many were fired up, too.
Shielded under umbrellas, many wearing masks, a cortege of hundreds of demonstrators clogged a thoroughfare in the central business district, carrying a yellow banner marked
"Glory to Hong Kong" and shouting: "Hong Kong, resist!"
A protester with a mask stands near other protesters moving a statue depicting a protester armed with gas mask, helmet and umbrella on the streets of Hong Kong. (AP)
The closure of the entire MTR network that handles more than 4 million trips a day, including the express line to the Hong Kong international airport, caused major and quite exceptional disruption to the usually never-resting but now edgy and restive territory of 7.5 million people.
"From MTR to EmptyR," tweeted activist Joshua Wong, a key player in 2014 protests that foreshadowed the past four months of demonstrations. Snowballing into a sustained outburst of anti-government and anti-China fury, the youth-led protests have plunged the international hub for trade and finance into its deepest crisis since the territory reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
A message on the MTR website cited staff safety and the need for repairs among reasons for the closure.
After widespread arson attacks, looting, fighting with police and beatings, the government
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in other parts of the territory on Friday.
"The anti-mask law has become a tool of tyranny," said Samuel Yeung, an 18-year-old university student in Central.
"They can make use of the emergency law to enact any policies or laws that the government wants. There's no rule of law anymore. We can only be united and protest."
Many protesters wear masks to hide their identity due to fears employers could face pressure to take action against them.
Pro-Beijing groups had been pushing for a mask ban but it was not clear how the government would implement it in a city where many of its 7.4 million residents wear them every day to protect against infection following the outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
Police can stop anyone in public and ask them to remove a mask if the officer believes it may prevent identification, according to the law. Exceptions are made if the person wearing a mask can prove they need it for medical, religious or professional reasons.
Offenders face a maximum fine of HK$25,000 ($A4700) and imprisonment for a year, according to details of the prohibition published by the government.
appealed for a public shift in attitude a
gainst rioting.
Pro-democracy protesters set a fire at the entrance of the MTR station during a demonstration at Causeway Bay district on October 4, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Getty)
John Lee, the government's security secretary, said by not condemning violence, people are stoking it.
"What is adding oil to violence is people's support for these acts," he said. "What is important is that everybody comes out to say, 'No, society will not accept violence."'
But even many peaceful protesters say violence has become a means to an end, the only way for young masked protesters to force the government to bend.
As a group of black-clad youths in protective gear rushed past him, many carrying bamboo sticks, a property industry worker who came out with his wife Friday night to show his opposition to the mask ban expressed his admiration for those confronting police.
"I know they have done terrible things" he said. "Can you believe how brave they are?"
He gave only his first name, Alex. He and his wife, Pauline, both donned masks that covered their mouths to hit streets in central Hong Kong where clouds of police tear gas to disperse protesters also caused spluttering tourists and Friday night revellers to flee, eyes stinging.
Protesters set cardboard boxes on fire at the entrance to the Causeway Bay Subway station in Hong Kong. (AP)
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in other parts of the territory on Friday.
"The anti-mask law has become a tool of tyranny," said Samuel Yeung, an 18-year-old university student in Central.
"They can make use of the emergency law to enact any policies or laws that the government wants. There's no rule of law anymore. We can only be united and protest."
Many protesters wear masks to hide their identity due to fears employers could face pressure to take action against them.
Pro-Beijing groups had been pushing for a mask ban but it was not clear how the government would implement it in a city where many of its 7.4 million residents wear them every day to protect against infection following the outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
Police can stop anyone in public and ask them to remove a mask if the officer believes it may prevent identification, according to the law. Exceptions are made if the person wearing a mask can prove they need it for medical, religious or professional reasons.
Offenders face a maximum fine of HK$25,000 ($A4700) and imprisonment for a year, according to details of the prohibition published by the government.
Protesters march on a street in Hong Kong. (AP)
Protesters hide behind umbrellas as they form a barricade to block a road in Hong Kong on Friday, October 4. (AP)
Four months of anti-government protests have plunged Hong Kong into its biggest political crisis since its handover from Britain to Beijing in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula granting it autonomy.
"This is the next significant miscalculation," said Phill Hynes, head of political risk and analysis at ISS Risk, shortly before the widely expected introduction of the emergency laws.
A protester is confronted by riot police during a massive demonstration outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong (AAP)
"The next will be barring certain candidates from running in District Council elections. Both will nicely inflame tensions and increase protests and actions."
Pro-democracy campaigners condemned Lam's decision.
"This is an ancient, colonial set of regulations, and you don't use them unless you can't legislate anymore," said Martin Lee, a veteran activist and one of the city's most prominent lawyers. "Once you start, there's no end to it."
The UN human rights office said Hong Kong must protect the right to freedom of assembly and Britain urged its former colony not to aggravate tension.
China said it supports Lam's move to ban anti-government protesters from wearing face-masks, state television CCTV reported.
Riot police move forwards as anti-government protestors occupied a road in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019. A Hong Kong police official says a pro-democracy protester was shot when an officer opened fire with his revolver during clashes Tuesday. A video of the incident, filmed by the City University Student Union and shared on social media, shows a dozen black-clad protesters hurling objects at a group of riot police pursuing them. One officer, who was surrounded, drew his revolver and pointed (AP/AAP)
Yang Guang, spokesman for China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said the chaotic situation in Hong Kong cannot continue indefinitely, and that Hong Kong has reached a critical moment.
Yang said the protests were evolving into a revolution with foreign intervention.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/hong...g-stance/31fc5a62-0182-4247-bb83-caceaf28a33c
