Thread by @rhokilpatrick

Police, many in full riot gear, were deployed to schools across the city today. Uniformed schoolchildren were stopped, searched and intimidated for staging peaceful protests or handing out flyers. A bleak glimpse of Hong Kong under martial law.

(Pics via AD, TG, HKUSU Campus TV)

Sadly HKU’s Dr Sun is “geared up” no longer. Just as well, I’m sure he wouldn’t have approved of frontliners’ tactics. Kickboard shields? That would never have flown in the Huizhou Uprising or Whampoa Military Academy. The “Father of Modern China” was all in on armed rebellion.

It’s quite telling that when I first walked past this drawing at HKU of protesters getting savagely beaten I had to stop a moment to check out their outfits before I could be tell if it was triads attacking protesters at Yuen Long or police attacking protesters at Prince Edward.

The Big Stage at Tamar is taking a ten-minute breather and many people are walking away, but even so the park remains full of workers and students striking tiday to support the #antiELAB movement’s Five Demands.

Hong Kong students are magic. Change my mind.

After the Tamar Park rally drew to a close, protesters occupied Lung Wo Road and are now aiming their laser pointers at the PLA barracks.

This is deeply bizarre and troubling. Rally-goers in Tamar Park say a police helicopter hovering overhead earlier scattered a fluorescent neon powder over the crowd that sparkles under torchlight, helping more easily identify attendees to this (still perfectly legal) gathering.

Outside Prince Edward MTR Station protesters are laying flowers as tribute to the protesters beaten and arrested here on Saturday night.

“If we burn, you burn with us!”

The crowd outside Mong Kok Police Station in numbering in the hundreds yet again tonight. The police are warning them to disperse.

An army of riot police and raptors are chasing protesters down Nathan Road. By the looks of it they may have the protesters outnumbered.

Wow. When the police stopped they were surrounded by protesters and angry local residents who have actually chased them all the way back to the police station!

Pepper spray then tear gas and bean bag rounds fired at Mong Kok Police Station after police make several arrests on Tung Choi Street.

There was no warning before police used pepper spray and tear gas. Both journalists and cops were hit with no masks or protection on, and were begging for water. Protesters tried to shield us with umbrellas and volunteer medics cared for everyone effected.

Police are running up and down the sidestreets of Mong Kok, rounding up about a dozen people. Overheard on a pedestrian footbridge:

女：右邊有三___！
男：三隊？！
女：三個！
男：三個？！
女：三隻！
男：👌！

Hundreds of police are still occupying Nathan Road. Coupled with their presence in MTR stations and schools today, it’s clear they’re trying for an overwhelming show of force to deter protesters. But as this video shows, they’re not the only ones capable of strength in numbers.

This morning police were filmed chasing and tackling middle-schoolers outside Confucian Tai Shing Ho Kwok Pui Chun College in Tai Po, where yesterday around 100 students who wanted to participate in the #antiELAB strike were locked inside a classroom.

Many protesters are changing how they refer to police, appropriating the slur that police use against them (and journalists): “cockroaches.” It’s a word they’ve had to type so rarely before that they’re sharing how to enter it using the Sucheng input method commonly used in HK.

The use of such dehumanising language is a very dark path to go down. It’s doubly disappointing that it’s the “disciplined forces” that have led us to this point.