It's not so much the absolute level of police violence in Hong Kong as the arbitrary, capricious way in which the police direct that violence that makes them so hated. They routinely pepper spray or beat people for talking back.https://twitter.com/JOceanW/status/1200292920642818048 …
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Back in early August
@zeynep explained to me that the worst thing about tear gas and pepper spray, once the pain wears off, is how dehumanizing it is. The police are literally treating you like you'd treat vermin. That stuck with me. The police call protesters here 'cockroaches'.Show this thread -
Some of the discussion of HK police violence overlooks what's happening at police stations. People have come out of custody badly injured, there are the most awful reports of sexual abuse, and on top of that is an unfounded but very pervasive belief that people are being killed.
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The belief that awful things will be done to you if you are arrested drives a lot of protest behavior, particularly among younger kids. A large number of people at PolyU were willing to come out and have IDs taken down by police, once assured they would not be taken into custody
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Even at Carrie Lam's official listening session in September, two participants stressed that they were not suicidal, alluding to a belief that many suicides (by all evidence part of the normal rate for a city this size) are in fact masked executions.https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/09/27/hong-kongs-carrie-lam-trapped-stadium-4-hours-protesters-rallied-outside-first-town-hall-session/ …
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All that to say, wherever Hong Kong falls on the absolute matrix of police violence, people's lived experience of the situation is terrifying. That reality is important context for understanding people's behavior.
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End of conversation
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