Wanchai Chaos

I just got home from TST after a long day of walking and shopping. My friends and I were tempted to head over to Wanchai after dinner to check out the WTO protests, but unfortunately, the violence and chaos had been raging all day Saturday, after the Korean protesters stated they would escalate their violent actions as the meetings came to a close. At the Star Ferry, there was a police announcement that ferry service to Wanchai was stopped as well as the closure of Wanchai's subway station. There was also a warning not to go to the Wanchai area. I heeded this advice. Later, we saw live footage of the violence on the KCR trains and were glad we didn't go to Wanchai to take a look.


Courtesy: CBS News
Personally, I'm surprised the HK police has been so tolerant with the violent protesters. Other WTO protests I've seen on TV in Cancun and Seattle showed riot police hitting protesters. The HK police were holding the lines and not taking any offensive actions against the aggressive protesters (mainly South Koreans) The riot police had shields and batons but didn't seem to use the batons to strike protesters. There was also pepper spray/foam used and later water cannons were used to clear out the protesters.

I heard that 900 protesters were arrested today and I'm just glad that this ordeal is over. Hopefully, the HK government has learned its lesson-it was not a good idea to have the WTO meetings downtown in the highly accessible Exhibition and Convention centre. What a terrible idea. Thankfully, this mess is over tomorrow (Sunday, Dec 18). The nasty protesters can go home.