HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s metro rail system will shut early again on Thursday to allow time to repair damaged facilities, its operator said as the city braced for more anti-government demonstrations after a string of violent protests in the Asian financial hub.
MTR Corp, whose network carries about 5 million passengers a day, said a line servicing a densely populated area in the city’s New Territories would not operate and all lines would close by 9p.m., more than three hours earlier than normal.
The usually efficient service was forced to shut down after arson attacks by anti-government protesters on Friday night, paralyzing transport across the Chinese-ruled city. It has operated only partially since.
The closures also come ahead of more protests on Thursday and others planned for the rest of the week.
The unrest started more than four months ago in what began as opposition to a now-withdrawn extradition bill but has since widened into a pro-democracy movement amid fears that China is encroaching on Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Those freedoms were guaranteed under a “one country, two systems” formula when Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, a formula that allows wide-ranging autonomy not enjoyed on the mainland.
However, the unrest has pushed the special administrative region into its worst political crisis since 1997 and poses the biggest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012.
Demonstrations planned for Thursday include some in support of Taiwan on its National Day and rallies against perceived police brutality, with protesters expected to wear eye patches to show solidarity with a young protester who was injured in clashes with police.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a National Day speech Hong Kong was “on the edge of disorder” because of the failure of “one country, two systems,” and she vowed to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty as Beijing ramps up pressure on the self-ruled island.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and there had been suggestions in China after Hong Kong’s 1997 return that Taiwan could be brought back into the fold under a similar formula.
Hong Kong is still recovering from a long weekend of violent clashes between police and tens of thousands of protesters.
Scores of shops remain boarded up after being trashed or torched, anti-government graffiti is scrawled over bus stops and buildings, and some streets are still strewn with broken glass and twisted metal debris.
Protest violence has often targeted the MTR mass transit system, which has been accused of closing stations at the government’s behest to stop demonstrators gathering.
The city’s economy has been hammered by the protests as it faces its first recession in a decade. The tourism and retail sectors have been hit particularly hard as visitors stay away.
Shopping malls and businesses have been forced to shut repeatedly, while a slew of events and conferences have moved to other locations, including Singapore.
The political sensitivities of the protests have also ensnared international businesses, with the US National Basketball Association the latest example after Chinese organizers on Wednesday canceled a fan event over a tweet by a team official supporting the Hong Kong protests.
China has warned foreign governments to stay out of the protests which they deem as an internal affair and have accused some, including Britain and the United States, of fanning anti-China sentiment.
More Hong Kong protests planned as metro limps back to business
More Hong Kong protests planned as metro limps back to business
- MTR Corp, whose network carries about 5 million passengers a day, said all lines would close more than three hours earlier than normal
- Closures come ahead of more protests on Thursday and others planned for the rest of the week
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
