Loss of Trust

Protestors set fires in Mongkok tonight, angry at police brutality

The problem with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor finally announcing she will withdraw the bill after three months of protests is that all the trust in the government and the police is completely gone.

Tonight the MTR stations at Mongkok and Prince Edward are shut down and tear gas has been fired yet again because people are surrounding these stations and demanding answers about how the police brutally beat people up on August 31. They also believe a person died in Prince Edward MTR station, which the railway operator denies.

At 7am this morning a woman dressed in black and wearing a hat and mask, sat down by the control booth at Prince Edward MTR station and had a sign demanding the staff release the CCTV footage in the station and she would start a hunger strike.

A quiet protest crowd gathered at Prince Edward MTR station

Even though she left at noon, by late afternoon a large crowd had filled a good part of the station with other people sitting there quietly.

While people accuse the police of treating people brutally in the station, the force claims its officers only chased after those radicals they believed changed their clothes after trashing the station.

The police also pushed journalists aside whenever they were beating people up, the authorities claiming they were concerned for their safety, but really they didn't want more video footage of them excessively hitting people.

And now people want CCTV video footage in the Prince Edward and Mongkok MTR stations to be made public. They don't trust anyone anymore.

That also means protesters still want Lam to agree to their other four demands; one is far from enough.

A statue symbolizing the Hong Kong protests up in Central

Every evening at 10pm, people can be heard doing "shout protests", calling out for the five demands to be met. Even this evening as I came out of the MTR station, there was a young woman in black standing across the street, shouting out slogans.

Perhaps Lam doesn't hear them, but surely she must know people are not satisfied with just withdrawing the bill.

If she really wants to stop the violence and help start Hong Kong heal, then she really must also conduct an independent inquiry. The more she refuses, the more the violence will escalate again.

How does Lam think she and the police will build up trust again with the people when they are skeptical of anything she or her administration say?