Riot police chase protesters through Hong Kong shopping malls

Hong Kong riot police chased demonstrators through shopping malls, fired pepper spray and arrested a pro-democracy politician on Sunday as protests calling for the resignation of the city’s unpopular leader resumed after a pandemic-enforced lull.

Hundreds of protesters responded to a call for flash mobs and gatherings in at least 10 shopping malls across the city, marking a modest return for the pro-democracy movement that convulsed the Asian financial hub for seven straight months last year through rallies that often turned violent.

Since January, coronavirus has put a brake on the mass gatherings that saw millions take to the streets to demand universal suffrage and more freedoms and autonomy from Beijing’s rule, but with the city successfully tackling Covid-19, small protests have begun to spring back to life.

Permission for a march, coinciding with Mother’s Day, was denied by the authorities on the grounds that large gatherings are still restricted to stop the spread of the virus.

Instead, demonstrators gathered in malls to chant slogans and sing the unofficial protest-inspired Hong Kong anthem, prompting a heavy-handed response from riot officers who charged in to disperse heckling crowds of shoppers and activists.

As protesters deployed cat and mouse tactics with the riot police, the force appeared in one incident to fire a pepper ball and three arrests were made.

In the evening, clashes moved onto the streets of the busy commercial area of Mongkok, which has become a frequent flashpoint.

Police in riot gear used batons and pepper spray, and reports emerged of local journalists being corralled, forced to kneel and banned from reporting. Medics, on scene to help the injured, were reportedly detained.

At the height of the Sunday evening clashes, officers were filmed throwing Roy Kwong, a Democratic Party legislator, to the ground, with one pressing his knee onto the politician’s head.

He is believed to have been trying to negotiate with the police. His party wrote on its Facebook page that Mr Kwong is to be charged with disorderly behaviour.

His arrest follows angry scenes between pro-democracy and pro-Beijing legislators in the city’s parliament on Friday, as they fought to take control of a committee with responsibility for controversial new bills, including one to criminalise disrespect of the national anthem.

The confrontation resulted in democratic politicians being dragged to the ground and ejected from the room.

As public anger spilled onto the streets on Sunday, the authorities accused protesters of “seriously disturbing public order and posing threat to public safety” and appealed to them to follow disease control laws.