• Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities: West feeds protests. Restore order
  • Hong Kong in chaos, armed men with covered faces attack protesters and commuters at the station
  • Hong Kong, protesters in the square, police shoot tear gas
  • Still protests in Hong Kong, thousands challenge the police

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03 August 2019A protester in Hong Kong, climbed on a pole and tore the Chinese flag and then threw it in the famous Victoria Harbor, the bay of the former British colony. The anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong ignored the increasingly severe warnings of the Beijing authorities and erected barricades blocking the streets of the shopping district and one of the main road tunnels. China's semi-autonomous financial center is at the ninth consecutive weekend of protests and clashes triggered by opposition to the law that provides for extradition to China for any crime.

In Tsim Sha Tsui, a port district known for its shopping malls and luxury hotels, security forces officers, in riot gear, armed with shields and gas masks, confronted hundreds of protesters who were besieging a nearby police station . The protesters, many of them dressed in black, smashed the car windows in the police car park and smeared the nearby walls with graffiti. A group of activists has even created a kind of big slingshot to throw bricks in a building. For its part, the police fired bursts of tear gas and then made their way to beatings, making numerous arrests.

Since the morning, tens of thousands of protesters have marched in nearby streets, chanting "be water" as a slogan, a sort of hymn to the unpredictability borrowed from the martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Many roads were invaded by barricades, even a port tunnel was blocked for a short time.

"We will fight as guerrillas, today and we will be water," a 19-year-old girl with a helmet on her head told AFP. It is two months since Hong Kong has been the theater of demonstrations, often followed by violent clashes between the police and small groups composed of the movement's "hard wing", born to protest against a law that provided for extradition to China, but then widened to a broader demand for guarantees for freedom, which according to the dissidents are progressively thinning as China's grip on the metropolis with a special status becomes more stringent. Apparently, there is no sign that the chaos is abating . In the slogans and songs sung in the parades the other residents of the Special Administrative Region are asked to join the strike called on Monday. But even tomorrow two marches are expected, further clashes are feared.