Video sparks fears Hong Kong protesters being loaded on train to China
Video of Hong Kong protesters being loaded onto train spurs concerns they are being sent to China
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By
Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2019/11/18 18:25
(Screenshot of Twitter video)
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A video that surfaced on Monday (Nov. 18) appearing to show Hong Kong protesters being loaded onto a train near the border with China has sparked fears online that they are being sent to a detention center in the communist country.
As clashes continued on a university campus between riot police and pro-democracy protesters, a video was posted on Twitter spurring concerns that arrested demonstrators were being illegally extradited to China. At 2:33 p.m. on Monday, Twitter user @Woppa1Woppa posted a video showing handcuffed protesters being forced onto a train and wrote that it was unknown where they were being sent.
Below the Tweet, several netizens identified the train as belonging to the East Rail Line of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system. Although the detainees' destination is unknown, netizens pointed out that the last two stations are Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau, which are both border checkpoints into China.
Twitter users suggested that the students were from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which was the scene of fierce clashes between riot police and pro-democracy protesters on Monday. One Twitter user, who goes by the handle @lilisuricate, ominously said that there are no Hong Kong police stations near any of the stops along the train's route to the China border.
The youth activist group Demosisto wrote on Twitter that people in North District "threw objects on the railway track" to prevent the protesters from being transported to China. Hong Kong police have yet to issue an official statement on the destination of the arrested demonstrators.
At 12:34 p.m. on Monday, the Facebook group "Clear Voices from the Island" (港島你明) uploaded a post which included several photos of apparent protesters allegedly being loaded onto the train. The author of the post then writes that there is a high-resolution photo of a train originating from Hung Hom Station taken at 12:01 p.m. and showing people in handcuffs being led onboard.
The post first gives the time 12:23 p.m. and says "Mong Kok East Station." It then states at 12:28 that two vans in the "upper left [of photo]" have the license plate numbers VF7046 and AM2837.
The author then requests anyone who recognizes the detainees in the photo to contact the page's administrator.
Facebook post by Clear Voices from the Island showing photos of the incident:
