District Councillor's Aide Injured During Protest

A district councillor’s assistant was injured in an altercation with police outside the Cityplaza mall in Taikoo Shing on Sunday evening, hours after riot police cleared the upscale mall minutes after a peaceful protest started.

Democratic Party district councillor Andrew Chiu claimed officers had pulled his assistant head-first to the ground, shortly after police unfurled a warning flag telling people gathered outside the mall that they were taking part in an unauthorised assembly.

Video of the aftermath showed the man lying on the ground for more than ten minutes, appearing to be dazed and barely moving, as volunteer medics tried to help him.

RTHK cameras did not capture the exact moment of the fall, but recorded how officers had wrested the assistant away from Chiu.

The man was later taken away on an ambulance.

Chiu said there had been some pushing and shoving as he and his assistant were trying to help a crowd as police were ordering them to leave.

The councillor said when he realised the police wanted to arrest his assistant, he rushed forward to try to grab hold of him to pull him back.

But before he knew it, Chiu said his assistant had already fallen to the ground, for which he blamed the police.

The councillor said two medics had told him that his assistant wasn’t able to talk, and could only communicate by blinking his eyes.

Growing emotional, Chiu then apologised to his assistant’s parents, saying they were only there to try to protect the community.

Some people had gathered at the mall earlier in the evening in response to online calls for a ‘sing-with-you’ protest.

But they had only started chanting slogans and hadn’t sung a single song before police burst in and marched from floor to floor, ordering people to leave.

Chiu said a police commander told him they had received complaints of people gathering there in violation of the government’s ban on public gatherings of over four people.

Most left the mall immediately, as scores of police entered, but many stuck around outside afterwards, yelling insults at police from time to time.

However, things remained relatively calm before incident involving Chiu’s assistant.