German Student Eyewitness Compares Hong Kong Riots to 2014 Fascist Maidan in Ukraine

Dec. 12, 2019 (EIRNS)—A German student gave a comprehensive, eyewitness report on the development of the riots in Hong Kong, at a forum in Mainz, Germany this week, sponsored by the local German-Chinese friendship society.

The student, who was studying at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, focused on events that occurred there, including the murder by a Hong Konger in Taiwan, who then fled to Hong Kong to evade prosecution, which sparked the extradition law.

The student gave graphic descriptions of several incidents, including how students from mainland China were harassed and intimidated. For instance, when mainland students put up small Chinese flags in their windows to mark the 70th anniversary of the P.R.C.’s founding, rioters threw liquids under the doors of their rooms or knocked at the doors until 4 a.m.

In another incident, when the university director rejected rioters’ demand that he speak out against what they alleged was police violence, they stormed his office, dragged him into the courtyard and forced him to make a statement against police before running cameras.

Furthermore, the rioters also closed down the university canteen, because the catering service was run by a mainland Chinese company. They pulled the canteen staff out and harassed them, ignoring any attempt by staff to engage in dialogue. Rioters also seized all the food that came into the university, denying any to the non-rioting, normal students, who otherwise had had nothing to eat for at least three days.

During the university occupation, the rioters threw tables and metal pipes down from a bridge onto a busy highway. Like terrorists, when the police came they exploded two empty cars they had parked in places where they expected the police to approach.

Most students stayed in their rooms, attempting to avoid harassment. At one point, the German student decided to find out what was going on: What he saw was a line of people making Molotov cocktails, filling bottles with flammable chemicals from the university laboratories and throwing them at the police.

At that point, the German student decided to flee the university with several mainland students. Since three of the university’s five entrances were blocked, they had to go through back entrances to a subway station. When they left the university, they found the street had been barricaded by empty cars that rioters had parked in four rows, and which they would have exploded had the police approached from that side.

While the event moderators would not allow for questions afterward, the Germans in the audience evinced shock at the contrast between the student’s report and those from the media.

When the Schiller Institute organizer told the student speaker that his report of the violence in Hong Kong was reminiscent of the Maidan violence in Ukraine in 2014, he agreed, and acknowledged that, in fact, he knew that among the Hong Kong rioters were individuals from Ukraine’s Right Sector.