One officer drew his gun but did not fire as protesters hurled plastic water bottles and umbrellas at him.

The clashes are among the most violent in the Chinese-ruled city after a period of relative calm following intense anti-government protests that escalated in June last year, with fears over the coronavirus keeping many residents indoors.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in and around Mong Kok district and the Prince Edward subway station, where some of the fiercest violence erupted on Aug. 31, when police fired tear gas at pro-democracy protesters throwing petrol bombs.

Some chanted “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our time,” while others called for the police force to be disbanded, echoing slogans from previous demonstrations.

As the number of protesters increased, some set fires on Nathan Road in Kowloon district, sending plumes of thick, black smoke billowing into the air of the shopping hub, where police responded with pepper spray and tear gas.

One demonstrator hurled a petrol bomb at a police vehicle but missed. Others set up road blocks. Mong Kok subway station was closed.

The police said in a statement they had used “minimum necessary force” for dispersal and arrest operations and urged members of the public to leave the area immediately.

PUBLISHING TYCOON’S ARREST
The scenes brought back images of the clashes that plunged the former British colony into turmoil last year and posed the gravest popular challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The arrest this week of publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of Beijing, on charges of illegal assembly thrust the protest movement back into the spotlight and drew condemnation from Washington and international rights groups.

Lai has made financial contributions to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrators.

While there have been sporadic protests this year, they have been largely peaceful and a return to violent clashes will pose a significant challenge to embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam as she grapples to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The outbreak has piled pressure on Lam, in particular over her refusal to seal the border with mainland China, which has infuriated many residents who see it as a move to appease Beijing.

The protesters are angry about what they see as creeping Chinese interference in Hong Kong, which returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula intended to guarantee freedoms that are not enjoyed on the mainland.

China says it is committed to the arrangement and denies meddling. It has accused foreign governments including the United States and Britain of inciting the unrest.

Protesters have called for an independent inquiry into the police force – one of five demands made on the Hong Kong government – amid allegations of excessive force.

Police say they have been restrained in the face of escalating violence.

The government announced in its budget this week that funding for the police force will reach HK$25.8 billion ($3.31 billion), up 25 percent from the previous year, drawing widespread criticism from democracy activists.

More than 7,000 people have been arrested in the anti-government protests, many on charges of illegal assembly or rioting, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Several days later, on Feb. 20, the entries reappeared on the contest website—but with some photos removed.

The incident is the latest instance of businesses being pressured to suppress content related to the Hong Kong protests, for fear of harming financial interests in the Chinese market. When NBA team Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the Hong Kong protests in October, he was quickly pressured to delete the tweet, with the NBA issuing an apology to Chinese fans. US gaming company Blizzard Entertainment also issued a temporary ban against a Hong Kong player from its competition for having shouted a slogan in support of the city’s protesters in a post-game interview.

In the case of the photography competition, two of the entries, by photographers David Butow and Hong Kong-based Ko Chung-ming, had earlier been removed altogether, with links to the works on the contest website returning a 404 error. Butow’s entry, Battleground Hong Kong, was a photo essay of 10 black-and-white images showing scenes from the protests’ frontlines. Ko’s entry, Wounds of Hong Kong, consisted of 10 portraits of protesters with injuries and scars sustained from the protests. Both entries were put back up online, but Butow’s had been cut to five photos and Ko’s to four.

Butow, who is based in the US, eventually decided to retract his entry because the truncated form was inconsistent with how he wanted to display his work, he said. Another entry, titled Hong Kong Protestors by Australian photographer Adam Ferguson, was put under restricted access. When reached by Quartz last week for comment, Ferguson said he had not been notified that his entry had been made inaccessible, adding that it was “crazy but not surprising.” His entry is now readily accessible to everyone in its original form.

When Butow asked the award’s organizer, the World Photography Organization—which has offices in Shanghai, London, and San Francisco—why his photos were no longer available, he was told that concerns had been raised about his entry. “It was something like it was politically sensitive… there were concerns about the political nature of the work,” he said, recounting his conversation with the contest organizer. Ko got a similar response. The organizers flagged the “sensitive nature” of some images and told him his entry was under review, according to a Facebook post by Ko.

The contest organizer’s decision to effectively censor his work surprised him, said Butow. Before submitting his work to this year’s awards, he had looked at last year’s finalists’ entries. One was by the photographer Mustafa Hassona, whose third-place entry showed Palestinian protesters in Gaza.

It was “political, highly charged, and depicted scenes of violence and injury,” Butow said of Hassona’s photos. Seeing that the World Photography Awards had shortlisted Hassona’s entry and displayed it on its website showed that ”they are not shying away from work that’s quite political and that shows conflict, which is what the Hong Kong work shows,” he said.

While the organizer didn’t fully explain to Butow the decision-making process behind removing five of his ten photos, he said he was told that some of his images were “politically sensitive for certain markets, certain viewers.”

The World Photography Awards, considered one of the preeminent competitions in the photography world, were first hosted in 2008, and Sony has been a sponsor from the start. China makes up 13% of Sony’s total sales, according to the latest available company filings. Last year, German camera maker Leica—for whom China is the biggest growth market—found itself censored on Chinese social media after the company released an advert featuring Tiananmen Square. Leica subsequently distanced itself from the advert, saying it wasn’t “officially sanctioned.”

In response to a Quartz inquiry, the World Photography Organization said that it’s not unprecedented for concerns to be raised over shortlisted images. “If a series is deemed to breach the competition terms we will endeavor to curate it so that the entered images can comply,” the organization said, without elaborating on who raised the concerns regarding the Hong Kong protest images, and what competitions terms they breached to warrant their deletion.

Protesters inside the malls threw umbrellas and other objects at police who responded by beating some demonstrators with batons, with one pointing his gun at the crowd, but not firing.

Some demonstrators occupied the main roads and blocked traffic outside the malls and nearby luxury hotels in the Tsim Sha Tsui tourist district of Kowloon.

A man was shown on public broadcaster RTHK as falling from the second floor to the first floor of a mall in the rural Yuen Long district as he tried to evade police. He was conscious as he was taken away by paramedics.

There was a heavy police presence into the night in Tsim Sha Tsui with hundreds of officers standing guard on the roads as thousands of Christmas shoppers and tourists, some wearing Santa hats, looked on. A water canon and several armored police Jeeps were parked nearby.

Dozens of protesters started digging up bricks from the roads and set up barricades, as police said in a statement they would deploy “minimum force to effect dispersal” and arrest “rioters”.

Many families with children had congregated in the area to view the Christmas lights along the promenade, the spectacular backdrop of Hong Kong island on the opposite side of the harbor.

The protests in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, now in their seventh month, have lost some of the scale and intensity of earlier violent confrontations. A peaceful rally this month still drew 800,000 people, according to organizers, showing strong support for the movement.

Scores of black clad, mask wearing protesters chanted slogans including “Revive Hong Kong, revolution of our time,” and “Hong Kong independence” as they roamed the malls.

“Lots of people are shopping so it’s a good opportunity to spread the message and tell people what we are fighting for.” said Ken, an 18-year-old student.

“We fight for freedom, we fight for our future.”

A bank branch of global banking group HSBC was vandalized in Mong Kok, according to television footage. The bank on Friday became embroiled in a saga involving an official crackdown on a fund-raising platform supporting protesters in need.

HSBC denied any link between a police clampdown on the platform, called Spark Alliance, and the earlier closure of an HSBC bank account tied to the group.

Protesters had nevertheless called for a boycott of the bank at its headquarters in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district.

Around 100 protesters also trashed a Starbucks inside a mall called Mira Place, breaking the glass counters displaying pastries and spraying graffiti on the walls.

The coffee shop chain has been a common target of protesters after the daughter of the founder of Maxim’s Caterers, which owns the local franchise, condemned the protesters at a U.N. human rights council in Geneva.

Metro operator MTR Corp said it shut two stations, Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui, early on Tuesday night due to protests in the area. Train services were meant to run overnight on Christmas Eve.

The Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized some of the biggest marches involving more than a million people, has applied to stage another march on New Year’s Day.

Police have arrested more than 6,000 people since the protests escalated in June, including a large number during a protracted, violent siege at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in mid-November.

Many Hong Kong residents are angry at what they see as Beijing’s meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula put in place at that time and has blamed foreign forces for fomenting unrest.

In a video posted on her Facebook page, Chief Executive Carrie Lam wished Hong Kong citizens “a peaceful and safe Merry Christmas”.

Lam has so far refused to grant protesters’ demands which include an independent inquiry into police behavior and the implementation of full universal suffrage.

The chaos started early on Monday when demonstrators, still angry after the first protest-related death on Friday, moved to disrupt the morning commute. A scuffle ensued outside a subway station in which a police officer shot a protester at point blank, all of which was caught on a video that went viral within moments. He’s currently in intensive care.

Hong Kong’s $530 Billion Stock Rally Buckles as Protests Worsen

The shooting spawned calls for a flash mob at noon in Central, where protesters blocked roads in one of Hong Kong’s premier shopping districts. Police fired tear gas to clear them out, leading to chaotic scenes of office workers ducking into luxury malls to wash out their eyes with water.

Around the same time, video emerged of a man doused with petrol and lit on fire. Hu Xijin, an editor with China’s state-run Global Times newspaper, said the victim had “openly disagreed with radical protesters” at the time of the attack. He’s currently in critical condition, according to hospital authorities, who said almost 50 people were injured.

The shocking videos raised fears that things could get even worse, as the pro-democracy protests show no signs of letting up after five months of increasingly violent demonstrations opposing Beijing’s grip over the city. Hong Kong stocks on Monday saw their biggest loss in about three months, banks sent people home early and the Hong Kong Jockey Club closed all off-course betting branches, underscoring fears about an economy already in recession.

Later in the day, the University of Hong Kong canceled all classes on Tuesday. Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union urged a suspension of all classes at schools and kindergartens, according to a statement on its Facebook page.

“We’re afraid that the escalation is really on both sides, but more so on the police side,” said Fernando Cheung, a pro-democracy lawmaker who has mediated between police and protesters during the city’s unrest. “It will become more chaotic and more violent — that seems to be inevitable.”

Hong Kong’s government urged in a statement Monday afternoon for protesters to remain “calm and rational.” Chief Executive Carrie Lam, whose move to introduce legislation allowing extraditions to the mainland initially sparked the protests, on Monday called it “wishful thinking” that violence would prompt her to make any concessions such as an independent inquiry into police violence or for the ability to pick and choose their own leaders.

“I’m making this statement clear and loud here — that will not happen,” she said in an address, flanked by members of her cabinet. “Violence is not going to give us any solution to the problems that Hong Kong is facing. Our joint priority now as a city is to end the violence and to return Hong Kong to normal as soon as possible.”

The police defended the officer who fired his weapon, while suspending another who deliberately rode his motorcycle into a group of demonstrators. Police dismissed as “totally false and malicious” online rumors that they had ordered officers to use their firearms “at will.”

The reinvigorated violence followed a weekend of demonstrations that resulted in almost 90 arrests. Demonstrators angered over the death Friday of a student who was injured earlier near a recent clash between police and protesters vandalized shops and train stations while throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station, blocking roads, hurling objects at police.

“Police reiterate that no violent behavior will be tolerated,” the police said in a statement. “Police will continue to take resolute enforcement action so as to safeguard the city’s public safety and bring all lawbreakers to justice.”

The student who died Friday suffered a brain injury after falling from a parking garage near a demonstration where police used tear gas to disperse a crowd. Hong Kong police officials denied reports that officers had chased and pushed the student. A memorial drew tens of thousands of people.

Over the weekend, China reiterated that it would ensure only people loyal to it will become Hong Kong’s chief executive. The majority of representatives in Hong Kong’s cabinet, judiciary and legislative bodies should also support the central government, Zhang Xiaoming, China’s top official overseeing Hong Kong affairs, said in a post on the agency’s website.

The inability to implement Article 23 — the section of Hong Kong’s Basic Law requiring legislation prohibiting treason and subversion against the Chinese government — and its failure to set up units to follow through were the main reasons separatist movements are on the rise, Zhang said. In 2003, the Hong Kong government halted implementation after protests drew hundreds of thousands of people.

Anger over police tactics in the latest protests that have injured demonstrators has been a major focus of recent rallies. Hong Kong’s police watchdog has neither the authority nor the resources to effectively investigate the ongoing protests in the city, according to the Independent Expert Panel brought in to advise it.

The panel saw “a shortfall” in the powers of the Independent Police Complaints Council, according to a statement posted on the Twitter account of panel member Clifford Stott, a dean for research at Keele University in England. In July, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Lam tasked the IPCC with conducting a fact-finding study into the unrest after growing public concern about police behavior and tactics.

The five experts of the panel were announced in September by the IPCC to advise the council as the rift between the government and protesters widened, with activists including the establishment of an independent inquiry into police conduct as one of their five demands.

“There’s a requirement for the IPCC to have increased capacity if it’s going to address the scale of events in question,” Stott said by phone. “We’re calling for that as a matter of urgency.”

“You know, Blizzard had the opportunity to bring the world together in a tough Hearthstone esports moment about a month ago and we did not,” Allen said at Blizzcon, the online gaming company’s big annual convention in Anaheim, California. “We moved too quickly in our decision making and then, to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk with all of you.”

“When I think about what I’m most unhappy about, there’s really two things: The first one is we didn’t live up to the high standards that we really set for ourselves,” he continued. “The second is we failed in our purpose. And for that, I am sorry and I accept accountability.”

Twitter rushed to slam the Blizzard president for what some users called an “extremely bare bones” or an “empty words” apology.

Said one user: “amount of times J Allen Brack mentioned Hong Kong or China for why in this context all esports players should have the right of free speech and expression: 0.”

Another user wrote: “This is not an apology. Once again, just like in the original statement Blizzard made, they’re not apologizing for punishing Blitzchung, they’re apologizing for ‘moving too quickly,’ and taking too long to make an official statement.”

Still another said: “His long flowing locks aside, what does this even mean? Will they never again bow to the will of the Chinese government? My magic 8-ball says ‘ask again later.'”

The controversy started last month when Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of Activision Blizzard, suspended Hearthstone video game player Ng Wai Chung, known in gaming circles as “Blitzchung,” after he shouted “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” in a post-game interview at the Hearthstone Grandmaster tournament.

Blizzard immediately rescinded Blitzchung’s $10,000 in prize money and banned the player for one year. It then backtracked on its decision after about a week of backlash and calls for boycotts from the online esports community.

Many saw Blizzard’s response to the Hong Kong player as the latest example of an American company bowing to Chinese government influence. With its burgeoning middle class, the Chinese market is an important market for video game companies. Chinese technology giant Tencent had a 4.9% stake in Blizzard’s parent company Activision Blizzard as of November 2016, the latest publicly available information.

Some players had also called for protests at the Blizzcon convention this weekend, such as by donning “Winnie the Pooh” costumes. The cartoon bear is banned in China after internet users unfavorably likened the character to Chinese president Xi Jinping. At least some attendees appear to have done so according to posts from Twitter users.