雅虎香港電視

A silent sit-in at Hong Kong’s Yuen Long MTR station turned chaotic on August 21 as protesters engaged in a standoff with riot police, during a demonstration marking one month since a mob dressed in white attacked people at the station.

Police and demonstrators faced off outside the station, according to Hong Kong Free Press. Protesters placed construction barricades on the road to impede police progress, and later entered the station proper, discharging fire extinguishers on the ground and upturning rubbish bins to prevent the authorities from following them.

Despite the dramatic scenes at the station, Hong Kong Free Press reported that the majority of protesters departed the area without directly engaging with the police. Footage tweeted by a reporter with the South China Morning Post shows protesters embarking on trains from the station at about 11.15 pm local time.

This footage shows a makeshift barricade that protesters erected at the front of the station to separate themselves from police. People can also be seen lowering one of the station’s metallic gates, and discharging a fire extinguisher through the openings in the gate to deter the authorities.

The original mob attack in Yuen Long station on July 21 left over 30 people hospitalized. It was alleged that members of a Triad gang carried out the attack. The police were heavily criticized by local residents for not responding to the incident quickly enough, Channel NewsAsia reported. Credit: SocREC via Storyful