Police supervise the loading of barricade fences from a pro-democracy protest area onto a truck in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong. (AFP/ALEX OGLE)
Women targeted in sexual assaults at Hong Kong protests
POSTED: 04 Oct 2014 14:14 UPDATED: 04 Oct 2014 14:18
HONG KONG: Women pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong are being targeted with sexual assaults and harassment, demonstrators and an international human rights group said as violence broke out in two of the city's busiest shopping districts.
Amnesty International accused the police of "failing in their duty" to protect protesters from violence on Friday (Oct 3) evening, and said that women and girls had been attacked. "Women and girls were among those targeted, including incidents of sexual assault, harassment and intimidation" in the commercial hubs of Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, Amnesty said in a statement.
The assaults came as police failed to control groups of anti-Occupy protesters who targeted pro-democracy demonstrators in violent scenes on Friday evening.
An AFP reporter spoke to one young woman protester in Causeway Bay who said her three friends had been assaulted by a man who was opposed to the Occupy movement, whose supporters have vowed to stay on the streets until their goal of universal suffrage is achieved. The three women were all crying as they were bundled into a police van. "We are making further inquiries - these girls say they were indecently assaulted," a police officer on the scene said.
Amnesty said that a woman at the Mong Kok clashes had also been attacked. "A man grabbed her breasts while she was standing with other protesters at around 4pm (local, Singapore time)," they said in a statement. "She also witnessed the same man assault two other women by touching their groins," it added, with other protesters intervening to help. Tensions remained high at protest sites in Hong Kong Saturday with fears over further reprisals and journalists also being targeted.
- AFP/rw
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/mobile/asiapacific/women-targeted-in-sexual/1397860.html
