Hong Kong Police have stepped it up.
They’ve laid siege to multiple universities
And threatened to use deadly force.
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode has been sponsored by Surfshark.
It’s great for university students and everyone else
who want to protect their identity online.
Autumn is in the air. Students are back at school.
And nothing reminds me of my college days
like cramming for midterms...
toga parties...
and utter chaos in the streets....
Just like this week in Hong Kong.
Well, maybe not the toga parties.
But definitely utter chaos in the streets.
The difference here is that it’s not unruly students,
but mainly the *police* who are instigating the utter chaos.
The Chinese Communist Party rules all of China.
But a few decades ago,
they made a promise to let Hong Kong
keep its freedoms until the year 2047.
Turns out, that was a lie.
That’s why protests have been ongoing in Hong Kong
since early June this year.
Hong Kongers are concerned that the Communist Party
is *already* encroaching on their freedoms.
And now, after years of being blocked from Hong Kong’s political process,
they’ve turned to protesting as a last resort.
And as the summer months wore on,
police began to greet protesters almost every time...
by firing tear gas as them.
And the protests have gotten more aggressive.
And things escalated again early *last* week,
after police entered several of Hong Kong’s biggest universities,
firing tear gas and arresting students.
That was after students tried to initiate
a class boycott and general strike.
“The clashes turned what had been sanctuaries
for the students at the core of the movement into scenes
that evoked medieval citadels under siege.”
Police eventually backed down from most of those universities.
But if you thought “medieval citadels under siege” was bad,
well, a few days later it got even worse.
Over the weekend, Hong Kong police once again
surrounded Polytechnic University of Hong Kong,
known as PolyU.
They began arresting students, and...
stomping on their heads?! Jeez.
Overnight clashes began at PolyU on Sunday evening.
Police fired volleys of tear gas and blocked the exits
after protesters set fires on a bridge.
More than a thousand people were trapped inside the university,
including reporters, medics, and high school and university students.
Now, Hong Kong students are pretty straight edge.
How else would you describe students who empty beer bottles
to make molotov cocktails,
but don’t drink the beer?
That’s how you know this is not America.
Anyway, the point is,
Hong Kong parents don’t have to worry about
their kids inhaling weed,
but they do have to worry about them
inhaling tear gas.
Speaking of tear gas...
It’s designed to make people disperse.
But Hong Kong police used tear gas
to *stop* people from escaping campus.
That’s right, they fired tear gas to keep people from running away.
It’s not because they’re stupid. Probably.
It’s because the police are trying to punish the students
until they have no choice but to surrender,
and be arrested.
For some reason, the police seemed to believe
that if they could arrest all of the protesters at this particular university,
they could strike a huge blow against the protest movement.
So they went all out.
In this footage shot by a student journalist,
police detain two people on campus,
including an Emergency Medical Services person.
Then they order to student journalist
to lie down on the floor of the medical center,
then to stay put, then to come with them.
Then police in Darth Vader-inspired helmets lead him outside,
where it looks like the volcanoes of Mustafar.
Just...like...my college experience
at a small liberal arts university in California.
This video shows protesters escaping campus
by climbing down ropes from a bridge.
And then volunteers on motorcycles come to rescue them.
Yes, times are so desperate in Hong Kong,
students are using what they learned in gym class to escape police,
and then get rescued by biker gangs.
We live in the strangest timeline.
Other protesters attempted to escape through the sewer system.
The situation in Hong Kong has become Mission Impossible
and The Fugitive at the same time.
Mission: The Fugitive.
No, that doesn’t work.
What does work is apparently more medieval siege tactics.
Protesters on campus faced off with heavily armed police
by throwing bricks and molotov cocktails.
One protester reportedly shot a bow and arrow,
and hit a policeman in the leg.
And police responded to these medieval weapons
with a threat of modern deadly force.
“I would warn the rioters,
don’t test our bottom line.
If we have to respond,
I believe the only option is to use deadly weapons.”
So once again, Hong Kong police are threatening
to use deadly weapons on Hong Kong protesters.
Which is no empty threat,
considering Hong Kong police
have already shot protesters with real bullets—
once on October 1st,
and again on November 11th.
Both protesters survived thanks to emergency medical treatment.
But those incidents make protesters worried that police really are willing to open fire.
So thousands of ordinary citizens took to the streets on Monday to ask police to let
the students out of the university.
Including parents of some of the students stuck inside.
“Save our kids”? Who are they asking?
Because the police don’t seem to be willing to help.
Unless by help, you mean tear gas.
In the end, most of the students were let out
to be arrested or registered by the police.
On the plus side:
Midterms are canceled.
So what do you think?
Leave your comments below.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.