Hong Kong citizens gathered at the school of a 15-year-old girl whose naked body was found dead in the sea last month, demanding release of unedited CCTV footage.
Chan Yin-Lam, a student at Youth College in Tseung Kwan O went missing on Sept. 19 and was last seen at the campus.
New CCTV footage released by the school shows the girl walking at the campus for about 20 minutes before leaving alone on the day she was last seen.
Critics said the girl, who is a regular participant of the ongoing pro-democracy protests, died at the hands of the police force. Authorities denied these claims, saying there was nothing suspicious about the teen’s death, calling it a suicide.
“We don’t want to believe this kind of thing is happening in Hong Kong but in fact it did, Hong Kong citizen Sam told NTD reporter Jeremy Sandberg.
“I don’t feel this place is safe anymore. This place is completely controlled by the communist party,” Sam said.
Police brutality has intensified against protesters, which began as opposition to a now-withdrawn extradition bill, but has evolved into a pro-democracy movement.
Since the protests began in June, the number of suicide cases reported has exceeded 100, an unprecedented record in the city. In addition, many of the victims are young protesters with questionable details surrounding their deaths.
“There are lots of dead bodies found out at sea the last two months, and Chan was one of them,” Hong Kong citizen Keith Fong said. “So, I don’t believe Hong Kong people will commit suicide a lot at this moment.”
After the school released new CCTV footage of just two short clips, students noticed discrepancies in the timecodes and a cut off after the girl entered an elevator, angering students who demand to see what happened afterward, claiming the footage is edited.
“If they didn’t do anything wrong, why don’t they just release the CCTV videos as well as tell the truth to the public,” citizen Miss Lui said.
Students demanded the full, unedited CCTV footage. When authorities refused to show them the unedited version, students vandalized the school, smashing glass doors and security cameras on the school campus.
“The public has been questioning the truth of the CCTV footage, that there may be something that is hidden, citizen Miss Lam said.
“I think that all of the citizens have the responsibility to uphold the rights of freedom of speech and human rights. I would like to see Hong Kong’s bright future,” Lam told NTD reporter Jeremy Sandberg.
Students have been on strike the whole week since Monday and demand the footage be released as citywide protests continue.
Hong Kong Suicide Rate Soars Since Protests
According to various media reports, since the protests began in June, the number of reported suicide cases have soared. In the two months following June 12, the number of suicide cases reported was about 10 people in every ten-day period. Then, from Aug. 21 to Aug. 31, the number suddenly rose to 18. And in the following ten days, the number jumped to 49. So far, the total number has exceeded 100, and many of the victims were young protesters, according to various media reports. Needless to say, this is extremely abnormal.
First of all, having more than 100 suicide cases in just a few months is unprecedented in Hong Kong’s history. These so-called suicide cases were either through jumping off high-rise buildings or by drowning. A fireboat operator wrote on a social media post that he had worked on fireboats for more than a decade, and the number of corpses he recovered in the past several months is as high as the total number from the past ten years.
In addition, there are many questionable details in these suicide cases as reported by various media outlets. For example, several victims who fell from tall buildings did not bleed but displayed past injuries on their corpses. One victim who had supposedly “drowned” was found with his hands bound together. Another victim whose body was found floating in the bay across Tsuen Wan had his mouth covered with tape, and it appeared that he did not die from drowning as his body was not bloated. In another horrific case, a naked woman fell from a tall building and it seemed her body had already been severed at the waist.
Many believe that these people were murdered before they were thrown into a river or thrown off a building. Most notably, the number of unusual suicide cases increased drastically after police raided the Prince Edward station on Aug. 31.
Riot police stormed MTR trains at Prince Edward station and made many arrests that night. Witnesses say the police assaulted passengers indiscriminately, chasing and beating them with batons on the platform and using pepper spray inside train carriages. Several people were hit on the head and bled heavily.
Many protesters were reported missing after the incident. Ms. Leung, the director of Kwun Tong community, shared on social media that an employee working at a mortuary service revealed that police caused at least six deaths at the train station. The mortuary company handled these six corpses, and the employees found that they had all died from broken necks. Apparently, the police had forcibly twisted their necks 90 degrees from behind to cause the deaths.
In other words, it is widely believed that among the more than 100 suicide cases, only a few individuals actually committed suicide, whereas the majority were murders disguised as suicides.
Reporting by Jeremy Sandberg.
Epoch Times reporter Yuan Bin contributed to this report.