Politics – Tear Gas Chokes Hong Kong

The densely populated city is feeling the effects of 6,000 cans of tear gas

- By Sheridan Prasso, with Natalie Lung

King Ng, once a healthy 72-year-old retired mechanical engineer, now suffers from headaches so severe he often can’t sleep. He’s taken two weeks’ worth of antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection, yet his throat is still itchy and dry and he has a lingering cough.

Three months ago, Ng inhaled tear gas through the closed—but not airtight—windows of his second-floor apartment. Hong Kong police have used the substance to quell pro-democracy protests almost every weekend, and occasionally on weeknights, since June 12. They’ve fired almost 6,000 rounds, according to a tally of figures released in police briefings, in areas that are home to as many as 88% of Hong Kong’s 7.4 million residents.

On that particular day, Aug. 5, police fired 800 rounds as the demonstrations spread through 14 of Hong Kong’s 18 districts, including Ng’s neighborhood, Wong Tai Sin, which has the territory’s highest concentration of elderly people. Most of the district’s residents live in crowded public housing towers, where the median per capita income is just $21,500 a year. “We’re the lowest on the food chain here,” Ng says, shrugging. “I feel a bit angry because it’s not only the elderly people and children here, but everybody in Hong Kong is suffering from the tear gas.”