Riot in Hong Kong on Chinese New Year

Hey! Welcome back to my blog!

So as I mentioned in my introduction, I will be blogging about "Human Rights and Freedom in Asia". So I've decided to start off with my most comfortable place, almost like home...HONG KONG! 

For those who don't know about Hong Kong. It is an SAR (Special Administrative Region). It used to be a British Colony from 1842-1941. Now it is under the Chinese government and it has caused many disagreements and conflicts. I'd like to focus on a more recent riot. It happened on February 8th, the first day of Chinese New Year, there was a pretty big problem. The residents of Hong Kong were protesting because of the elections and how they wanted to have a better choice of candidates. They were fighting for freedom. Because they couldn't get that, they decided to protest. The protesters didn't like the authorities and the police were a sign of authority, so they threw water bottles and trash cans at the police. It became a huge riot and even the police had to fight back with pepper spray! The authorities fired gun shots as warning but that wasn't enough to stop the people. The people even took out certain bricks from the pavement to throw at the police. It was a huge mess right at the beginning of the New Year!1,4,5 

Here's a resident throwing a garbage bin at a police.
And yes, that is how big the garbage bins in Hong Kong are.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with what the people think. They want to have freedom so they're acting up in order to make a statement. BUT...I don't think they should have hurt the police. Many of the officers were hurt, injured, and could even have been killed. I mean, anyone could die if a brick was thrown at the head. Was there absolutely no way in talking things out? Maybe this could have happened some other day even. The Chinese are really superstitious people and having a disaster happen right on the first day of New Year isn't exactly what I'd call a great way to start off the year. The people even started fires. And not only did they hurt the police, they ended up hurting the reporters, journalists and even other residents. I just think that this shouldn't be the way to express opinion because they are hurting each other and I'm sure many of the police officers were confused and innocent but being punished for things they didn't do. They just so happened to be part of the authorities. Everything was really well elaborated though, I have to give them credit for that. 

In the end, even though I think it's important to express yourselves and to fight for rights and freedom, this should not be the way. And just because the residents of Hong Kong have done this, that doesn't automatically make them bad people and a bad place. They are not the type of people to just start a riot and definitely should not be judged for one thing that they've done.

下次再見...

(See you next time...)

Sources:

1- http://time.com/4213191/hong-kong-riot-protest/

2- My mom 
3- A news broadcast that I watched with my mom 
4- http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/hong-kong-activists-police-clash-over-holiday-food-stalls-1.2769991
5- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong

Just A Little Introduction...

Hi! My name is Wynonna and this is my blog on human rights and freedom in Asia. You may be wondering why I choose Asia of all places. Well, there are two reasons. One, I'm Asian (specifically Chinese) but also Canadian so by writing this blog on this topic, I will be able to learn more about how politics work in Asia. Two, Asia is a pretty big place and there are lots of countries that are good and bad examples of freedom and human rights. So it's important for me to not only focus on the negative or only the positive but also to explore and see the many sides and perpectives of Asia.

Before I continue on, there are some questions to be answered. For instance, what are human rights? According to Dictionary.com, human rights mean "fundamental rights, especially those believed to belong to an individual and in whose exercise a government may not interfere, as the rights to speak, associate, work, etc." All these fancy words just to explain that every person has the authority to do or have certain things. 

Which ties into my next question. What is freedom? Also, according to Dictionary.com there are many definitions because there are different types of freedom. There's the political freedom, the physical freedom and many other types as well. But there is a common point for each definition on the different types of freedom and that is to be free and to have liberty and rights.

Human rights and freedom work together and they're tied with each other. They're each other's synonyms. Plus how can you have human rights without freedom and how can you have freedom without human rights. The basics of having human rights is being free.

In my next few posts, I will share some of my knowledge as well as some knowledge from other sources to cover the different point of views of each situation in each place. Until then, here is a little history on what human rights are and how they came to be...

Until next time...