BEIJING – After sunset, mobile phone torches light up, turning the streets into a luminous river. Here is the "silent majority" in Hong Kong, which according to Chief Executive Carrie Lam is on the side of the government and the police. It is not silent at all: yesterday it fell back into the street en masse, 800 thousand people according to the organizers, 183 thousand according to the authorities, in any case an impressive snake among the skyscrapers of the city. I am not even on the side of the government: "Five questions, not one less", the participants shouted in black, young people, adults and the elderly, the demands for democracy and transparency that Lam does not want to hear. Thus the first demonstration authorized on the island for four months now, and six since the start of the protest, has shown that dissent in Hong Kong has not diminished. Rather. And this time he expressed himself in a substantially peaceful manner. Small groups of masked youths have vandalized a few shops linked to China and launched a couple of Molotov cocktails against the courthouse buildings. Almost nothing compared to the guerrillas seen in the past."For the government it is the last chance to respond," summarize the organizers, the Civil Human Rights Front, in the evening. But will Carrie Lam, or those in Beijing make the decisions for her, respond? The doubts are legitimate. Nothing moved even after the overwhelming victory of the democratic camp in the elections two weeks ago. True, the government has said it will "humbly" listen to criticism. And yesterday the agents, lined up on the sides of the procession, avoided the charges and the tear gas seen on other occasions. But the "openings", if they can be defined in this way, stop here. The messages of the new police chief are cryptic: "We will use both the light and the strong approach", he said, continuing to reject the commission of inquiry into the work of the police that the citizens want. Yesterday morning his men, in an operation on which there are few details, arrested eleven people seizing a semiautomatic pistol, the first that appears from the beginning of the protest, and some knives. The suspicion of the investigators is that they could be used during the march. The total number of detainees meanwhile has exceeded 6 thousand, many are very young and will have to face serious charges such as that of "revolt", for which they risk ten years in prison.
Foreign
Hong Kong, Trump signs prosecutors law. And China threatens "harsh countermeasures"
from our correspondent FILIPPO SANTELLI
The majority for nothing silent has spoken with the vote and with the feet, but no traces of political answers are seen, those that would serve to start a negotiation. Many protesters waved American flags yesterday, hoping that with the new law in support of Hong Kong approved by Congress Washington could put pressure on China. And yet, facing the wall of authorities, the uselessness of peaceful ways, after two weeks of relative calm, a return of violent actions is not excluded. For today there is a new appeal for the general strike, which a month ago sparked a massive daily sabotage of public transport and roads. Yesterday in the middle of the procession a masked girl dragged herself along hundreds of feet on all fours, encouraged by the other protesters. The symbol of a Hong Kong that does not stop.
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