How Hong Kong Protesters Used Hand Signals & Human Chains To Get Supplies During Protests
Mass demonstrations in Hong Kong kicked off on June 9 when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. Protesters have been using hand signals and human chains to get supplies quickly to front lines. Online polls were held to decide next steps ranging from which buildings to target to whether the protesters should maintain their siege of the police headquarters.
Mass demonstrations in Hong Kong kicked off on June 9, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in a united fight against a controversial extradition bill, which if passed, will allow suspects to be sent to other jurisdictions, including mainland China.
For more than a month people have been protesting with millions flooding the streets. More recently, Antony Dapiran a Hong Kong-based writer and lawyer, and the author of 'City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong,' shared a Twitter thread of just how organised the protest meet is.
A VIDEO THREAD: How did HK protesters use hand signals & human chains to get supplies quickly to front lines on Monday? Here, they need more helmets at the front line at LegCo doors. What to do? The hand signal for ¡°helmets¡± is passed from the front line through the crowd... pic.twitter.com/hKWDaohpvf
¡ª Antony Dapiran (@antd) 3 July 2019
Protesters have been using hand signals and human chains to get supplies quickly to front lines. From helmets, umbrellas and even scissors there's a sign for everything. Hand signals were thrown up at the front lines, echoed back through the crowd, and the requested item quickly passed forward, says Darpin.
Guides to the hand signals (below) had been circulated online over past few weeks.
¡ª Antony Dapiran (@antd) 3 July 2019
(I wrote about these & other new HK protest strategies for @NewStatesman here: https://t.co/LYr52vOwIt ) pic.twitter.com/Ghczy8qerX
In an article for New Statesman America, Darpin writes that, 'crowds might be leaderless bt were operating instead with a ¡°hive mind¡±, a deliberate response to the government¡¯s aggressive prosecution of previous protest leaders.'
Darpin says that most of the protest strategies were discussed on online platforms and WhatsApp groups, and the message efficiently passed on.
Oh, and scissors please... pic.twitter.com/fv11kWePvf
¡ª Antony Dapiran (@antd) 3 July 2019
'Online polls were held to decide next steps, ranging from which buildings to target to whether the protesters should maintain their siege of the police headquarters or call it a night,' writes Darpin.
Yep we got those. Here they come along the human chain. (Oh and more helmets needed too.) pic.twitter.com/UqjdwYOvsk
¡ª Antony Dapiran (@antd) 3 July 2019
That's not all the Hong Kong protesters have set an example to the world to show just how efficient human co-ordination can be when it comes to achieve a common goal. In one incident, a crowd of nearly a million protesters split up perfectly to make way for an ambulance.
Hong Kong protesters let an ambulance go through the massive protestpic.twitter.com/IN61ZnJ9fZ
¡ª Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) 16 June 2019
They made way for it without any sign of chaos or resistance. Many even compared the scene with the parting of the Red Sea, a biblical story.
Before the mass street protests, the tear gas and the clashes with police, the main trigger was a murder that took place outside Hong Kong in Taipei.
Poon Hiu-wing, 20, never returned to Hong Kong from that Valentine's Day trip last year, but her boyfriend, Chan Tong-kai, 19, did. Hong Kong police found that the man strangled her, stuffed her body in a suitcase and dumped it at a station in Taipei.
Hong Kong has extradition agreements with twenty countries, including the UK and the US, but not with mainland China. Taiwanese authorities were unable to prosecute this Hongkonger accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend for this very reason.
Tens of thousands of people rallied in central Hong Kong on June 16 as public anger increased following unprecedented clashes between protesters and police over the extradition law.
Hong Kong¡¯s chief executive Carrie Lam promised to ¡°indefinitely suspend¡± the bill in a bid to defuse the anger and violent clashes. However, this time the anger is when she refused to recall the bill; people are now saying that only her resignation can calm things down.
The Hong Kong government had said it wanted to align the city's laws with international standards. But the law would also pave the way for fugitives to be sent to China and that triggered a chain of protests.
No, at least 12 people have been arrested in the first wave of detentions linked to anti-government protests in Hong Kong, reports The Guardian.
Hong Kong police say they been been charged with offences that range from ¡°possession of offensive weapons, unlawful assembly, and assaulting a police officer."
