'Liaison Office Told Villagers To Tame Protesters'

A week before suspected triad gang members attacked protesters and commuters at Yuen Long MTR Station on Sunday, an official from Beijing's liaison office urged local residents to drive away any activists, according to the Reuters news agency

It said Li Jiyi, the director general of the New Territories sub-office, made the appeal at a community banquet for hundreds of villagers hosted by the Shap Pat Heung rural committee.

The agency said it obtained a previously unreported recording from the July 11 event and in that Li addressed the large crowd about the escalating protests that have plunged Hong Kong into its worst political crisis since the handover.

Li chastised the protesters, appealing to the assembled residents to protect their towns in Yuen Long and to chase anti-government activists away.

“We won’t allow them to come to Yuen Long to cause trouble,” he was quoted as saying, to a burst of applause.

“Even though there are a group of protesters trained to throw bricks and iron bars, we still have a group of Yuen Long residents with the persistence and courage to maintain social peace and protect our home.”

Repeatedly, Li spoke of the need for harmony and unity between the traditional villages and the government, “especially when there is wind and rain in Hong Kong”.

The banquet was attended by a Hong Kong government district officer, Enoch Yuen, and many of the city’s rural leaders. Yuen gave no immediate response to Reuters’ questions on Li’s speech and its impact on village representatives.

Last Sunday, after anti-government protesters marched on Hong Kong Island and defaced the liaison office, over 100 men swarmed through Yuen Long MTR station, attacking black-clad protesters, passers-by, journalists and a lawmaker with pipes, clubs and lampstands.

The liaison office did not immediately respond to questions about Li’s speech, and Li could not be reached for comment, the agency said.

Johnny Mak, a veteran Democratic Alliance district councillor in Yuen Long told the agency he believed Li’s remarks had been an explicit call to arms against protesters.

“If he didn’t say this, the violence wouldn’t have happened, and the triads wouldn’t have beaten people,” he was quoted as saying.

But Ching Chan-ming, the head of the Shap Pat Heung rural committee, said he thought Li’s speech was positive and held no malicious intent.

“How could he [Li] make such an appeal like that?,” Ching told Reuters. “I don’t think it was a mobilisation call. His main message is that he hopes Hong Kong can remain stable and prosperous.”