Police Brutality Knows No Bounds

A couple begging the police not to hit them anymore in the MTR carriage

This weekend has been too depressing news-wise. I cannot erase the horrific images in my mind of the young couple in the MTR carriage at Prince Edward who were mercilessly beaten by riot police. The couple was cowering in fear and afterwards were clutching each other so hard, in shock at what had just happened to them.

Will the police ever apologize for how they have terrorized them?

Riot police indiscriminately attacked people in MTR stations

And the rest of us for that matter? For that it has made a number of Hongkongers hate the police even more.

How can they just randomly beat people with batons on a wild rampage?

Just as shocking was the police not allowing first aiders to help those who were injured in the various stations. There's a heartbreaking video of a young first aider who is begging the police to allow him in, even saying they can beat him up, that he only wants to treat people.

When his pleas fall on deaf ears he sinks down on the ground and wails. There isn't much anyone can do to comfort him. In another station, three first aiders were forced to stand with their face to the wall and not help anyone. It's shocking and outrageous.

Moments before the police attacked the young couple

As far as I know there are no rallies planned this week, but perhaps someone will organize one to condemn such insane police brutality. July 21 we saw white-shirted men attacking people in Yuen Long MTR station and not a police officer in sight. And now on August 31 scores of riot police on a mission to hit anyone in their way, even slamming a young woman into the wall at Kowloon Bay MTR station.

It seems the MTR is now the new battleground ever since the public transportation network was criticized by Chinese state media for aiding and abetting protesters. This is hardly true. They are providing transportation for everyone.

But now that so much violence has happened in the MTR, will people be terrified to take it?

Tonight after the MTR shut down the line at Tung Chung (because protesters had vandalized it), they were were forced to walk from the airport to Tsing Yi, a four-hour walk, that some journalists had to do as well as they followed them.

Thousands make the long march from the airport to Tsing Yi

Along the way some people with cars handed out food and water to the protesters and some offered rides. At Tsing Yi scores of people with cars came out and gave some of them rides to where they needed to go.

There is one month to go before Xi Jinping's big 70th anniversary bash for the People's Republic of China, but protesters are far from ready to give up their fight...