Hong Kong police fire warning shots during street hawker riots

There was chaos on the streets on Hong Kong during the three-day Chinese New Year holiday after police fired warning shots and used pepper spray on street hawkers protesting against a crackdown on illegal food stalls.

The street-sellers set fires and threw bricks, rubbish bins and bottles at police who were trying to close down the food stalls, banned for hygiene reasons.

The protests happened near a subway station in Mong Kok, the scene of some of the worst violence during the pro-democracy Occupy protests of 2014.

The police said 48 officers were injured, with 24 people arrested, and several hundred protesters were involved.

“Radical elements have come with self-made weapons and shields and clashed with police. The situation ran out of control and became a riot,” said the deputy commander of Mong Kok district, Yau Siu-kei.

“Two warning shots were fired because many rioters were attacking police with hard objects and seriously threatened their lives, there was no choice but to protect colleagues,” he said.

Tensions have been running high in Hong Kong amid signs of China tightening its grip on the former Crown colony, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

It is the worst violence since the Umbrella Movement or Occupy protests, when student leaders stormed government buildings and protests drew as many as 100,000 people, and police used tear gas on demonstrators.

While the protests were abandoned after two months, radical protesters and “localists” - activists who are strongly against rule by Beijing and many of whom are based around the Mong Kok area.

The localists continue to push back against what they see as efforts by the Beijing-backed government to chip away at the city’s autonomy.

Among those reportedly arrested was Edward Leung Tin-kei, a spokesman for the localist group Hong Kong Indigenous who is standing for an election to the Legislative Council.

At least four journalists were injured, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) said.

A TVB cameraman was attacked with a broken glass bottle, while two others were hit by bricks.

The HKJA said that a journalist from the Ming Pao newspaper was attacked by policemen despite producing his press card and required a stitch to a head wound.

“There is no place in Hong Kong for the resolution of political or other differences within our community through violence. Least of all wanton attacks on members of the media whose job is to inform our people what exactly is happening on our streets and in our community without fear or favour,” the HKJA said in a statement.

The MTR underground train station for Mong Kok, once the most densely populated district in the world and an area full of high-rise apartment buildings, shops and street markets, was temporarily shut.

Around Chinese New Year, street stalls spring up around the area and many of the market-sellers do not have official permits, but traditionally the stalls are tolerated.

Student Julia Fung told the South China Morning Post how she had been hit by a police baton as she tried to take a photograph, and that the relationship between police and the people had hit a new low.

“You can feel rage in the police officers’ eyes towards the protesters,” she told the newspaper.