Morning Protests Leave Yuen Long Paralysed

Life in Yuen Long was severely disrupted on Wednesday morning as protesters blocked a major intersection and the MTR stopped West Rail Line services between Tuen Mun and Kam Sheung Road stations, with buses not running and a number of shops closed.

Bricks and other makeshift barriers were set up at the intersection of Castle Peak Road and Tai Tong Road, as well near the Kolour mall.

A Polytechnic University student, surnamed Wong, said the police’s action at the Chinese University on Tuesday prompted her and others to paralyse traffic in the area.

She said they wanted to hinder the police’s operations in the city in order to protect Chinese University, where officers and students had engaged in a pitched battle overnight.

Armed police arrived in Yuen Long and advanced towards protesters and onlookers at around 11am, raising flags to warn people that they may fire tear gas and rubber bullets if they refused to disperse. But after a few tense moments of slogan shouting and taunts, most of the protesters left.

Then a group of people, who showed up after officers gained control of the area, started cleaning away the roadblocks.

They were led by a well-known pro-Beijing supporter in the area, known as “big chest man”.

The cleaners claimed they were Yuen Long residents and said they had not been mobilised to do the clean up, even though many of them wore an orange badge on their arms that read “Hong Kong citizens”.

One of the volunteers said she joined the clean-up because she couldn’t go to work. “Hong Kong shouldn’t look like this,” she said.

A man was taken away by the police as the road was being cleared, but it wasn't known why he was detained.

Police officers and the cleaners left after around an hour or so and traffic started moving again.

The morning chaos followed a night of violent protests in the town centre, where a number of shops and banks deemed to be pro-Beijing and the MTR’s facilities were vandalised.

A section of light rail track near Tai Tong road stop were also damaged by some people, with what looked like concrete poured into it.