‘Umbrellas more aggressive weapons than useless tear gas’, claims pro-Beijing lawmaker
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 16 October, 2014, 5:07pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 16 October, 2014, 6:46pm
Tony Cheung
tony.cheung@scmp.com
http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/fi...?itok=qw8C3tBF
Leung Che-cheung said it is "basic common sense" that an umbrella can be an aggressive weapon. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
A pro-Beijing lawmaker in Hong Kong has claimed that the umbrellas carried by the territory's pro-democracy protesters are more dangerous than the tear gas and pepper spray used against them.
Leung Che-cheung told bemused colleagues today that the evidence was there in classic Hong Kong kung-fu movies, where the hero used an umbrella to fight the villain.
“It is basic common sense that an umbrella can be an aggressive weapon, but many lawmakers are just completely ignorant about history,” Leung lamented.
Pro-democracy protesters, now in their third week of occupying main roads around Hong Kong, have become famous for their umbrellas - initially brought to protect against sun and rain, but later employed against pepper spray.
The protests were soon christened the "Umbrella Movement", an identity demonstrators have eagerly embraced.
“The umbrella can be used as shelter from the rain and the sun, as a walking stick, or as a stick to [protect yourself] from stray dogs … It’s aggressive,” Leung continued on Thursday. “But tear gas and pepper spray are useless weapons … because they cannot make protesters fall [down], they just come back time after time.”
Leung is not a popular figure at the protest camps, after rumours - which the lawmaker denied - that he helped to mobilise a gang to trash the site in Mong Kok.
Pro-democracy lawmakers seemed lost for words in response to Leung's "history lesson". Ronny Tong Ka-wah of the Civic Party wondered whether his parliamentary colleague had been “watching too many movies”, before pointing out that "fists can be aggressive too".
Civic Party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit was even more dismissive. "This kind of defence [of police firing tear gas and pepper spray] is pretty weak, it does not warrant a serious response," he said. "When you mentioned it again, everybody laughed."
IT sector lawmaker Charles Mok said Leung was reaching for excuses to blame peaceful protesters for the sporadic violence in the past three weeks.
