Tensions Rise As Protesters 'recover' Yuen Long

Tensions started to rise in Yuen Long on Saturday afternoon as crowds of people, many of them wearing masks and black clothes, gathered in the town in defiance of a police ban on protest action.

By 2pm, police had already made an arrest after a man was slashed across the abdomen next to a Lennon Wall on a footbridge near Yuen Long Plaza.

Around an hour later, people were congregating outside the town's police station, chanting slogans against officers.

Officers in riot gear were looking down on them from inside the complex, although few police were actually visible on the streets.

A good number of shops were keeping their doors closed for the day and several bus services were not stopping in the town centre as normal.

Homemade signs put up at the MTR stations in the area warned people to pay attention to their safety and not to head into nearby villages.

The force had earlier banned a protest march called for Saturday afternoon over the violent rampage in Yuen Long's West Rail station last weekend by a gang of around 100 men dressed in white t-shirts.

However, the police expected many people to turn out regardless of the ban which they said they had imposed on safety grounds.

Calls had been made online for people to go to Yuen Long to "shop" or "dine", with some even suggesting a memorial for the late premier Li Peng as a way to get around the ban on the march.

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