Tan Yifan

317053244@qq.com

A RECENT video clip that went viral on social media shows a middle-aged woman fulminated against young protesters in a hall at Hong Kong airport while being besieged by protesters in black shirts and media workers with their cameras.

“Tell the politicians not to take advantage of youngsters! Do not take advantage of children who are emotionally stunned! Do not make them targets for political purposes!” she shouted and claimed that as a mother she felt annoyed at seeing young people behaving in a bad manner and being incited to fight in the frontline as political hatchet-men.

She held back her tears and was forced to retreat into a corner and had to repeatedly say she’s a Hong Kong resident — rather than a mainlander — and was there to pick up her friends, so as to protect herself from further abuse.

She was not the only one being verbally abused or even beaten by the agitated protesters or rioters. In fact, in the past weeks, police officers and their family members, tourists, civilians and a reporter from the mainland were severely mistreated in Hong Kong by rioters.

No matter whether it was on the streets or in video clips, most of those radical demonstrators who yell dirty words, hurl rocks, fire slingshots with rubber bullets, use laser pointers, throw petrol bombs and let off air guns were young people. Among arrested rioters, the youngest one was only 13 years old.

Hatred has been seen everywhere. One of the largest amplifiers of hatred was social media.

The algorithms of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and most other social media platforms offer users — most of whom are youngsters — what they desire to see and encourage them to hear only from their side.

Video clips of armed police releasing tear gas have been recommended for viewers while videos of the rioters beating police with thick sticks, stones and bricks were cut out.

Social media has become the main source of information. Sympathy for the rioters and fake news has been spread from one circle to another.

Biased media reports have also played a key role in misguiding people, especially youngsters.

In one piece of TV news made by CNN, a female journalist is reporting the tension between the protesters and the police. She describes that the protesters are threatened by the police officers. But by watching carefully through the scene, the viewer will find that it is the rioters who are holding sticks and are beating the police.

Another report that caused wide condemnation by protesters and led the conflict to escalation is about a female protester who was blinded during a protest. The one-sided report led by Apple Daily says that the woman was hurt by the police. But her doctor said she couldn’t have been shot by the police, and a later investigation proved the innocence of the police. However, there was no correction made by those media and the wrong report was still put at the top of many websites.

Reporters also tend to pick words carefully when describing an event. Negative words and phrases such as “prosecution,” “freedom decline” and “evil law” and expressions like “pro-democracy,” “peaceful demonstration” and “vulnerable people” can be seen repeatedly in English news articles. Those particular words help to build a stereotype among readers. Those biased reports try to justify anti-police or even anti-China actions.

Besides, opinion leaders and protest organizers are the initiators of the evil.

Nathan Law, a young organizer of the youth protesters, who has somehow avoided the airport standstill and easily escaped from his beloved Hong Kong, asked his followers to “persist and keep the faith” and fight on. He has proudly showcased his latest achievement — admission to Yale — and has started his school life in the U.S.

Joshua Wong, a notorious Hong Kong activist, called for a boycott of school and encouraged young students to quit their classes once school starts on Sept. 2. He also asked people to buy advanced equipment and even weapons to fight against “riot police.”

A recent photo reveals that Law, Wong and another two organizers met with Julie Eadeh, political chief of the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong on Aug. 6.

Photos of children being used as shields against the police can be found online. Passengers trapped at the airport without help can be found online. Ordinary people being pushed over and people speaking Putonghua being verbally abused can be found online. But none of them may be noticed and read by the protesters who have become irrational over the weeks.

A comment written by a netizen named Risk Seeker under the video of a visitor being beaten at the airport says: “It doesn’t matter who he was, what language he spoke, or what he said or did. Restraining him is a legal and personal violence and violation that removes any credibility from the cause they are protesting for.”

It is evil to encourage people, including youth, to use violence to achieve their goals and to seek freedom by taking away others’ freedom.

It is said that teachers in Hong Kong are instigated to strike in the coming September, which means that more students’ rights to education will be deprived. Even worse, what kind of message will the teachers and adults pass on to the next generation? To hate whoever is not in their camp and never bother to hear the voices from the other side? Young people in Hong Kong need to be saved from the world of biases.

(The author is head of Shenzhen Daily’s Qianhai office.)