HONG KONG — Police officers in Hong Kong on Sunday fired tear gas and fought with angry demonstrators outside a luxury hotel, another sign of fraying civility in a financial hub roiled by nearly five months of protests.
The protesters began gathering in the afternoon in the same shopping district where a week earlier the police used water cannons with stinging blue dye to clear a peaceful demonstration outside a mosque. The rally on Sunday was billed partly as a show of support for the city’s ethnic minorities.
Riot police officers fired tear gas on the demonstrators less than an hour after the rally began, and there was a heavy police presence in the area well into the night.
The rally on Sunday was unauthorized and came a day after a local court issued a temporary order that bans the harassment of police officers.
Here’s the latest on the Hong Kong protests.
Rally Descends Into Clashes
The rally on Sunday afternoon unfolded in the harborside neighborhood of Tsim Sha Tsui, a few blocks from the Peninsula, one of the city’s oldest and most expensive luxury hotels. Demonstrators carried signs saying, “Justice will prevail” and “Oppose the Communist Party, fight against totalitarianism.”
There was a heavy police presence from the start, and within minutes, officers were tussling with protesters and firing tear gas and pepper spray. Reporters inside the Peninsula’s lobby saw people choking on tear gas that had wafted in from the street. The Hong Kong police later said on Twitter that protesters had attacked officers with umbrellas and “hard objects.”
Cindy Chan, a retired janitor, got into a shouting match with three police officers in riot gear on the street outside the Peninsula. She said she had yelled, “Try to use it on yourself and see how it feels!”
The rally last weekend outside a Tsim Sha Tsui mosque had also been billed as a show of solidarity with the city’s ethnic minorities. It came days after a civil rights organizer was attacked with hammers by men that local news reports had described as South Asian.
When the police dispersed the crowds outside the mosque last weekend, they used water cannons that fired stinging blue dye, hitting protesters, journalists and the building’s entrance. The police later said that the spraying of the mosque had been an accident.
As night fell on Sunday, hundreds of officers marched from Tsim Sha Tsui toward the working-class neighborhoods farther north on the Kowloon Peninsula. A police truck sprayed water cannons, albeit without the stinging blue dye, and more tear gas was fired.
Government Wins Court Fight Against ‘Doxxing’
The rally on Sunday came a day after a Hong Kong court issued a temporary order banning the public from harassing or posting personal details of police officers online.
The Justice Department had requested the ban as a way of preventing protesters from releasing information about officers and their families — a tactic known as “doxxing.” The police force says it has received reports of hundreds of officers or their relatives being harassed after they were doxxed.
The temporary order, in effect until Nov. 8, prompted criticism for its broad language and potential chilling effect on free speech. Legal experts note that it applies only to Hong Kong police officers and not to the broader public.
The doxxing ban is only the latest restriction on the protest movement. In early October, Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, invoked emergency powers to ban face masks at protests, making it punishable by fines and up to a year in prison.
It was unclear how the government planned to enforce the new doxxing ban.
Doctors and Nurses Criticize the Police
Hundreds of medical professionals rallied in a central Hong Kong park Saturday night to express opposition to what they described as police violence against protesters. They also condemned recent arrests of medical professionals working on the protests’ front lines.
Police officers in riot gear have suppressed demonstrations for months using tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons and occasionally live rounds. Early this month, an officer shot in the chest, but did not kill, a teenage protester who had been charging him.
Saturday’s rally ended peacefully, but there were late-night standoffs between protesters and the police in Yuen Long, a district near the border with mainland China.
Yuen Long has been a flash point in the protests since July 22, when a mob of men in white T-shirts with sticks and metal bars assaulted dozens of people, including journalists and a pro-democracy lawmaker, at the Yuen Long train station.
Protesters Patronize Sympathetic Shops
Protesters have encouraged residents to shop and eat at businesses that support their pro-democracy movement, some of which now display “authentication” stickers. The calls come as a growing number of Hong Kong businesses and storefronts have been vandalized in recent weeks — mostly by protesters, but also by government supporters.
On Thursday, Lung Mun Cafe, a traditional Hong Kong eatery that supports the protest movement, was vandalized by men wielding steel rods who appeared to be government supporters. Customers turned up to the cafe in droves this weekend, although its windows and cash register were still broken.
Ezra Cheung contributed reporting.