Hong Kong: 18-year-old shot by police in stable condition
Tsang Chi-kin, the 18-year-old student of Tsuen Wan Public Ho Chuen Yiu Memorial College who was shot in the chest on Tuesday by police, is in stable condition, the South China Morning Post reports. Hundreds of his classmates and students and alumni of other schools “joined a peaceful sit-in at a car park outside the school.” The Guardian has a video of the sit-in, and the Hong Kong Free Press also has a report on protests in response to the shooting.
Tsang has a court date on Thursday, reports the SCMP, because he has been charged with “rioting and assaulting police.” He’s not expected to be in court though, on account of being in the hospital.
The Hong Kong police force defended the officer’s actions, saying it was for self-defense, while Xinhua’s Hong Kong branch filed a commentary saying the shooting was “totally legal and appropriate,” the SCMP reports. This commentary “was not picked up by any mainland Chinese media or outlet, which focused on Tuesday’s parade and celebration in Beijing.” You can read the commentary on Xinhua Hong Kong’s Facebook page (in traditional Chinese), where the title is “Solemnly enforce the law, root out violence and evil tumors” (嚴正執法剜除暴力惡瘤 yánzhèng zhífǎ wān chú bàolì è liú).
The shooting occurred in a “widespread day of chaos” in over a dozen locations in Hong Kong, the SCMP documents in an infographic as part of a separate report on National Day developments in the city. The Hong Kong Free Press also has pictures of what it calls a “day of havoc.”
A rubber bullet shot by police has permanently blinded the right eye of an Indonesian journalist, Veby Megha Indah, the Hong Kong Free Press reports. That incident occurred on Sunday, September 29. Multiple other outlets reported that their journalists were hit with projectiles on National Day, the HKFP separately notes.
The Junior Police Officers’ Association is urging emergency powers to be enacted, the SCMP reports. The colonial-era Emergency Regulations Ordinance, which was previously used during the 1967 riots, would enforce a curfew, and also “allows media censorship, arrests, deportations, the control of ports and all transport, the appropriation of property, and the authority to enter and search premises.” The Hong Kong Police Inspectors’ Association also supported the call for curfews and emergency powers.
Photo by Mohd RASFAN / AFP
