Acid Attacks Cause Terror

PR Log (Press Release) – Sep 19, 2009 – Hong Kong remains on edge and some of the streets were closed, in Hong Kong’s densest populated area, Mongkok, as acid attacks continue.

Mongkok has become almost a ghost town, following acid attacks in the famous Ladies Market, an area that is usually filled with wall-to-wall people, with one of the highest ratios of pedestrian traffic in the world.

Two attackers flung acid at two passers-by, splashing other shoppers. Ten people were hurt. It was the third such attack in just six months.

Unknown persons had thrown acid-filled bottles from a Mongkok building onto the pedestrians below, in the earlier attacks. Twenty-four passers-by were left with skin burns to their faces, shoulders, limbs and feet.

Donald Tsang, Hong Kong’s leader, condemned the attack, saying it was "cold-blooded and evil" and the assailant was "scum of the society." Investigators have posted a 900,000 Hong Kong dollar ($116,097) reward for information leading to an arrest.

Mongkok’s normally chaotic streets now have dozens of police patrolling them, as the neighbourhood remains on full alert. It is not believed the last attack was linked to the former three attacks. One man has been taken into custody.

In mainland China, in Zinjaing Province, thousands of Han Chinese staged demonstrations following reports that ethnic Muslim Uighurs were behind a rash of hit-and-run syringe attacks. Five protesters died in the demonstration and 14 were taken to hospital. As demonstrators clash with police, security forces are on standby in the area, including helicopters. The city was cordoned off and schools closed.

Tear gas was used to disperse the protesters, as long-simmering ethnic tensions erupted into riots. The Han Chinese are the country's dominant ethnic group; the Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority who consider Xinjiang their homeland.

In spite of the warning that offenders may face the death penalty, police had received 77 reports of syringe attacks. Over the past month more than 400 Han Chinese have been stabbed with tainted syringes.

Xinhua, a blogger at Chinese Digital Times, said “Some of those who said they had been stabbed actually suffered from mosquito stings and other psychogenic reason". Xinhua also referred to an official statement that hospitals in Urumqi have treated 531 victims of syringe attacks. Uighurs were among the victims.

Police have arrested 45 suspects with 12 remaining in custody. Three of the four people prosecuted are known drug users.

"People are angry that the government is not doing much about Ugyhurs' needle stabbing," said one local resident. The latest attacks come two months after inter-ethnic violence in Urumqui killed nearly 200 and injured 1,700.

According to the Central Asia Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, Xinjiang serves as a convenient drug-trafficking route, lying between opium-growing regions of Afghanistan and southeast Asia and the heroin markets in central Asia, Russia and Europe. It is estimated that more than 60,000 people in Xinjiang are HIV-positive.

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