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Hong Kong Sees Chaotic Halloween as China Hints at New Measures

Earlier, city authorities moved to gain greater control over the unrest that has gripped the former British colony.

Hong Kong Sees Chaotic Halloween as China Hints at New Measures
Masked ‘Halloween’ protesters gather in the Central district of Hong Kong, China. (Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong police scuffled with protesters and party-goers alike in a chaotic Halloween of revelry and demonstrations, as Communist Party leaders in Beijing signaled tougher security measures in the restive financial center.

Clouds of tear gas wafted through the city’s Central and Mong Kok areas, where protesters -- many wearing costume masks in defiance of a recent ban on face coverings -- gathered to push their demand for greater democracy and police accountability. Riot police closed the holiday hotspot of Lan Kwai Fong around 8:30 p.m., leading to tense confrontations with costumed party-goers who were shut out.

Hong Kong Sees Chaotic Halloween as China Hints at New Measures

Earlier, city authorities moved to gain greater control over the unrest that has gripped the former British colony for almost five months. Hong Kong’s courts on Thursday granted the local government its second injunction in a week limiting online speech -- the latest a 15-day ban on internet posts that incite violence or property damage.

In Beijing, the Communist Party’s decision-making Central Committee promised “to establish and perfect the legal system and enforcement mechanisms” to protect national security in Hong Kong and neighboring Macau. While the vague statement represented the party’s highest-level comment on the situation, it offered no details on what top leaders planned to do.

Hong Kong’s historically unpopular leader, Carrie Lam, and her backers in Beijing have so far failed to find a way to squelch the protests without risking the freedoms that underpin the city’s status as a financial center. Tourism and retail sales have been pummeled and the city’s economy officially entered a recession in the third quarter -- its worst slump since the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009.

So far, Chinese leaders have resisted taking harsher measures such as sending in troops that could further undermine the city’s autonomy, which is crucial to maintaining special trading privileges from the U.S. that serve as a competitive advantage for its economy. In a National Day address on Oct. 1, President Xi Jinping had called for stability in Hong Kong.

Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute and author of “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers,” said Beijing still appeared determined to wait the protesters out, despite the Central Committee’s statement.

“At any other time, a statement like this on Hong Kong would feel like boilerplate,” McGregor said. “But in the current moment, it serves as a reminder that Beijing is settling in for a long battle with the protesters. In that respect, it reflects a hardening Beijing’s position, not a change.”

Hong Kong Sees Chaotic Halloween as China Hints at New Measures

The protests erupted in June over Lam’s now-withdrawn plan to allow extraditions to mainland China and have since expanded to include calls for open leadership elections, which Beijing says it can’t accept. While China has long sought tougher security laws to restrain dissent, any action now could further escalate the protests and violence.

On Thursday, Hong Kong’s government condemned the acts of “rioters” who barricaded roads and hurled petrol bombs. “These illegal acts that have disrupted social order and jeopardized people’s safety are completely unacceptable,” the government said.

Hong Kong Sees Chaotic Halloween as China Hints at New Measures

The High Court’s injunction gave the government a new weapon to use against two of the protesters’ main organization platforms: the online forum LIHKG and the encrypted message app Telegram. The ruling, which will remain in force until Nov. 15, bans anyone from “disseminating, circulating, publishing or re-publishing” any internet posts that incite or encourage violence.

“The net is cast very wide,” said Antony Dapiran, a Hong Kong lawyer. “The terms of this injunction are extremely broad and constitute a serious threat to free speech in Hong Kong.”

The injunction comes after the High Court issued a temporary ban on harassing and disclosing personal data of police officers and their relatives without their permission. The government also in October invoked a colonial-era emergency law for the first time in more than a half century to ban face masks -- an ordinance that could also be used to impose internet censorship.

The Department of Justice said in a statement Thursday night that people have abused online platforms to encourage protesters to commit acts that have “seriously breached public peace, and posed a grave and genuine danger to the police and members of the public.”

Although the protests have dwindled from the more than 1 million who first took to the streets in June, smaller and sometimes destructive bands of demonstrators have continued to make their presence felt. On Thursday, hundreds used the occasion of Halloween to turn out in masks, and several train stations were closed as police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Hong Kong Sees Chaotic Halloween as China Hints at New Measures

Later, riot police swarmed the central nightlife destination known as Lan Kwai Fong, shutting down an annual Halloween party that usually attracts kids and parents in a costume parade.

“For safety’s sake, it’s getting too crowded,” Allan Zeman, the district’s largest landlord, told Bloomberg News. “It’s too dangerous, even for the protesters. Restaurants have been ordered closed and the police are going to clear everyone out of there.”

--With assistance from Blake Schmidt, Rebecca Choong Wilkins, Stephen Engle and Peter Martin.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shelly Banjo in Hong Kong at sbanjo@bloomberg.net;Natalie Lung in Hong Kong at flung6@bloomberg.net;Dandan Li in Bangkok at dli395@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten Kate

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