Hong Kong in Resistance: An Overview
Trigger warning for police brutality, violence, injuries and potential gore. View at your own discretion.
Mask Ban
What Is The Mask Ban?
The mask ban (formally the Prohibition on Face Covering Regulation, PFCR) is a law enacted through the Emergency Regulations Ordinance (ERO). It prohibits anyone from wearing any sort of facial coverings, including but not limited to medical face masks and face paint. It applies to both approved and unapproved public assemblies, such as rallies, marches, protests, and riots. The police are allowed to ask anyone in public to remove their mask for identification, and violations of the ban will warrant an arrest. Violators of the ban can receive up to 1 year in prison or a 25,000 Hong Kong dollar fine. Those that refuse to remove their facial coverings for identification can face up to 6 months in jail or a 10,000 Hong Kong dollar fine. People wearing masks for health reasons, religious reasons, and their professions are exempt.
What Is The Emergency Regulations Ordinance?
The ERO is a law that was introduced during colonial times in Hong Kong, in 1922. It was enacted to combat the seamen’s strikes that immobilized Hong Kong’s ports. The law allows the Chief Executive to bypass the typical legislative process of enacting policies (in Hong Kong, laws have to pass through the Legislative Council before being passed) in times of emergency or extreme public danger. The law has not been invoked since 1967, over 50 years ago.
Despite her invocation of the law, Lam claims that Hong Kong is not in a state of emergency, just one of “serious public danger.”
Image: reporters face off against policemen in riot gear. All the people pictured are wearing gas masks. One police officer is trying to remove the mask of a reporter. Source: SCMP
Mask Wearing Culture In Hong Kong
Hong Kong has a very ingrained mask wearing culture. It is in part due to outbreaks like the SARS virus (a sister virus to the current SARS-COV2 virus) and avian flu. People routinely wear masks on public transport, to work and to school.
During the protests, many protesters wore masks to protect their identities, in fear of retaliation from family, friends, or employers. They also wore them to protect themselves from tear gas. However, due to the mask wearing culture in Hong Kong, it will be very difficult to differentiate between mask wearing protesters and people who are ill. People who have facial coverings for religious reasons may also be endangered by the mask ban.
What Happened After The Ban Was Enacted?
The mask ban was announced late at night on October 4th, 2019, and came into effect on October 5th, 2019. It was enacted in an attempt to curb protests around the city. Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, said that she believed that the new law would deter protesters from going on the streets and protesting.
However, when the ban was announced, rage sparked across the city, leading to widespread protesting over the next few days. The protests were largely peaceful, but some protesters occupied streets, vandalized MTR stations, and set Chinese state-owned banks like Bank of China and China Construction Bank on fire. People avidly defied the ban, wearing masks and face paint as they marched and protested. Resentment toward the government and the police force continued to grow. Many voiced fears that the mask ban is just a way to test the waters for further enactment of laws to control the city.
The Mass Transit Railway (MTR), the main form of transit across the city, extensively shut down over those days, citing that many stations had been vandalized or damaged, and they no longer felt that they could provide adequate service. It is speculated that the MTR was shut down to prevent protesters from being able to arrive at protest locations. The MTR was shut down through the night and on October 5th.
The police continued to clash with protesters, firing tear gas and deploying pepper spray. The police also harrassed passerby with masks on, shouting at them to pull their masks down for identification and to present their identification documents.
Live ammunition was deployed again. Only one shot was fired, but it hit a 14 year old protester in the leg.
Image: a few people check on the shot teen, who is not visible in the image. Source: this twitter thread from @anti_elab
14 Year Old Protester Shot
On October 4th, 2019, at around 9:30 pm in Yuen Long, a reportedly off-duty police officer approached a group of protesters occupying a road. He was said to have bumped into someone, and was then surrounded by protesters that began attacking him. A molotov cocktail was thrown at his feet, and he was dragged to the ground while protesters beat him with rods.
In the chaos of the fighting, the officer pulled out his pistol and fired off a shot. The bullet hit a 14 year old protester in the inner left thigh. The boy was treated on the scene by FAs. He bled profusely from the bullet wound, but was conscious when an ambulance arrived to pick him up and send him to a nearby hospital.
The other protesters attacked the police officer with increased frenzy, throwing another molotov cocktail at him and setting him on fire. He ran, bleeding and burning, in the direction of Yuen Long MTR station, and shouted at the police in vans there for help. He was later hospitalized and treated for his burns.
Briefly, he turned back to retreive his gun, but protesters grabbed at him, causing him to drop it once. He managed to escape with the gun, but dropped an unused magazine. The police later requested citizens to return it as it is illegal to own ammunition without a license in Hong Kong.
The boy was transferred to Tuen Mun Hospital for surgery to remove the bullet. He was in stable condition. The day after, on October 5th, he was arrested on suspicion of taking part in riots and attacking an officer. Riot police were seen in Tuen Mun Hospital later that day.
The police released a statement that the police officer felt his life was in substantial danger, and fired off a warning shot. The boy was not targeted, and was only hit because the protesters were pulling at him. Netizens questioned why an off-duty police officer had a gun on him.
Image: a police officer ignores two men, hugging with no masks on, in the midst of a crowded street. Source: HKFP
Controversy Over The Mask Ban
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, infecting close to 5500 people and claiming the lives of 108 people in Hong Kong (data as of November 16th, 2020), the mask ban has not been rescinded.
In November, 2019, the mask ban was ruled to be unconstitutional by the Court of First Instance, one of the high courts of Hong Kong. The judges ruled that the grounds on which the police were allowed to request citizens to remove their facial coverings was too broad, and thus exceeds what is necessary for law enforcement. It was also ruled that the ERO is unconstitutional as parts of it are incompatible with the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s constitution. The government announced that the ban will no longer be enforced. This was met with immense displeasure from Beijing.
In April, 2020, the Court of Appeal partially overturned the lower court’s ruling, saying that while a ban on masks at authorized gatherings was unconstitutional, the government had the right to ban the wearing of masks at unlawful assemblies. It also overturned the ruling on the ERO from the lower court, saying that it was constitutional in times of “serious public danger,” despite it being a very broad term.
On July 15th, 2020, due to a sudden surge in cases in Hong Kong, the government mandated mask wearing on public transport and public areas. Despite this, the ban has yet to be rescinded.
The police have also been criticized for preferentially upholding restrictions meant to slow the spread of Covid-19 in Hong Kong. Since March, 2020, the police have used physical distancing restrictions as a way to deter protesters, while they look the other way when it comes to crowds of unmasked people out shopping. The police have not made any statements about this behavior.
Sources
https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202003/28/P2020032800720.htm (Government document)
https://www.elegislation.gov.hk/hk/cap599I (Government Document)
https://chp-dashboard.geodata.gov.hk/covid-19/en.html (Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong)
https://twitter.com/hkfp/status/1180157925714563072 (Twitter thread)
https://twitter.com/anti_elab/status/1180114476936421376 (Twitter thread)