Soldiers raise warning flag for first time amid Hong Kong protests

(Image credit: Laurel Chor/Getty Images)

last updated 6 October 2019

Things have not gone according to plan for Hong Kong's government.

The city's recent ban on protesters wearing masks, implemented after Chief Executive Carrie Lam invoked a colonial-era emergency law, appears to have failed as thousands of demonstrators returned to the streets for the 18th consecutive weekend of anti-government protests Sunday. Many of them continued to cover their faces in defiance.

The rallies grew more chaotic and violent as the day went on. Protesters reportedly set fires, damaged banks and subways, and constructed road barricades, while police fired tear gas and other projectiles. A taxi driver was reportedly beaten by a mob in one district. The scene led uniform soldiers from the Hong Kong garrison of the People's Liberation Army to raise a yellow warning flag to let protesters know they were in defiance of the law and may be prosecuted.

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Lam on Saturday pleaded with the public to denounce the violence and the protesters, but it appears to largely have been to no avail. Katherine Law, a 28-year-old protester, for instance, was attending her first unapproved protest on Sunday while wearing a medical mask following Lam's criticism and the emergency ordinance. "I just couldn't stand with the government anymore," she said. Read more at the South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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