- Title: Hundreds protest against anti-mask law in Hong Kong
- Date: 4th October 2019
- Summary: HONG KONG, CHINA (OCTOBER 4, 2019) (REUTERS) HONG KONG SKYSCRAPER / PEOPLE HOLDING UP THEIR HANDS HANDS VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WEARING MASKS, HOLDING PLACARDS, SHOUTING SLOGANS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MAN WHO IDENTIFIED HIMSELF AS MR.C, 25, SAYING: "So after the law is really established, I think, there will be real escalation in Hong Kong. So more people will stand out against the government if the law is really established." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE MARCHING WITH THEIR HANDS UP / WEARING MASKS / SHOUTING SLOGANS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WOMAN WHO IDENTIFIED HERSELF AS J.Y, 36, SAYING: "Unfortunately, I don't think it will help in the long run because I think that those people in power, actually they should find ways to use their power to solve the problem, to settle the problem. But now what we have been seeing is that people in power, they want to use the power to settle the people who voice out the problem, I think this is very sad for a place like Hong Kong. It is not where we are living, where we grow up from." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WEARING MASKS AND MARCHING THROUGH THE STREETS OF HONG KONG PEOPLE SHOWING THUMBS UP SIGNS TO THE PROTESTERS MORE OF PROTESTERS MARCHING WITH MASKS AND HOLDING THEIR HANDS UP
- Embargoed: 18th October 2019 09:55
- Keywords: Hong Kong anti-mask law
- Location: HONG KONG, CHINA
- City: HONG KONG, CHINA
- Country: Hong Kong
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
- Reuters ID: LVA001AZOJV47
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Hong Kong's embattled leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era emergency powers on Friday (October 4) for the first time in more than 50 years in a dramatic move intended to quell escalating violence in the Chinese-ruled city.
Lam, speaking at a news conference, said a ban on face masks would take effect on Saturday (October 5) under the emergency laws that allow authorities to "make any regulations whatsoever" in whatever they deem to be in the public interest.
The emergency laws allow curfews, censorship of the media, control of harbors, ports and transport, although Lam did not specify any particular action that might follow, beyond the mask ban.
But even before the new rule was confirmed, protests against it began across the Asian financial hub, with hundreds of office workers wearing masks gathering to march.
It was not clear how the government would implement a ban in a city where many people wear masks on a daily basis to protect themselves from colds and flu, especially after an outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
Anti-government protests have gripped the former British colony for months, plunging it into its biggest political crisis in decades and posing the gravest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power. The protesters are angry about what they see as creeping interference by Beijing in their city's affairs despite a promise of autonomy in the "one country, two systems" formula under which Hong Kong returned to China in 1997.
(Production: Joyce Zhou, Yiming Woo) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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