A police officer was stabbed in Hong Kong on Sunday, police officials said, in what appeared to be an escalation of the street violence that has gripped the city for months, as flash-mob gatherings unfolded across town.
The gatherings, in more than half of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory’s 18 districts, were the first significant unrest since Hong Kong was convulsed by violence a week earlier over opposition to a ban on face masks at public gatherings.
The unrest included attacks on the subway system and on businesses that protesters perceive to be supportive of Beijing.
The demonstrations in Hong Kong on Sunday were varied, including smaller gatherings across the city, and also cases of vandalism and arson that targeted government offices, subway stations, and several banks and shops.
Some protesters blocked roads, broke streetlights, vandalised a train station and spray-painted anti-government graffiti inside shopping malls.
Hong Kong police said one of its officers had been slashed in the neck by a protester Sunday evening with a “sharp-edged” object, and that two people were immediately arrested at the scene. Video of the incident circulating widely on social media appeared to show that the attack was unprovoked.
Police said the officer was conscious when he arrived at a hospital.
The South China Morning Post newspaper also reported that a man who protesters suspected being an undercover officer was attacked Sunday in the Tseung Kwan O district, before other officers dispersed them.
Sunday’s unrest began suddenly in the afternoon.
Police fired tear gas and made several arrests, and the city’s beleaguered subway operator closed more than two dozen stations.
Some protesters said they were demonstrating this weekend to express continued opposition to the face-mask ban, which took effect last weekend and which makes covering one’s face at a public demonstration punishable by up to a year in prison.
The city’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, drew on rare emergency powers to invoke the ban this month, prompting a wave of violent protests across the city.
The protest movement began in June in opposition to contentious legislation, since shelved, that would have allowed extraditions from Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland, where courts are controlled by the Communist Party.
It has since expanded to include a wide range of demands for police accountability and greater democracy. - New York Times