2 arrested in Hong Kong after dousing police with water guns

HONG KONG – Police in Hong Kong detained two men on Wednesday after they were accused of soaking police officers with water guns during a celebration of Songkran, the Thai New Year festival that involves people dousing one another with water.

The arrests were part of the Chinese city’s exhaustive crackdown on all forms of dissent, including provocations of police, whose public image has been tarnished since the pro-democracy protests of 2019.

They also coincided with a new government campaign called “Hello Hong Kong,” an effort to revive interest in the city as a tourism destination, after years of some of the world’s strictest travel restrictions and quarantine requirements.

In a late night briefing on Wednesday, Mr Cheung Lok Chuen, a police inspector, said that the force had arrested two men who had “targeted police officers” by “spraying water at them at close range”.

“The intent was to breach the peace,” he said. “The whole process lasted three minutes.”

Mr Cheung said a video of the spraying was shared on social media with “seditious” and “maliciously provocative” captions.

The men have been detained for questioning to investigate whether the splashing was “premeditated,” he said.

A conviction on public disorder charges could result in a fine of US$640 (S$848) and up to a year in prison.

The celebration of the Songkran festival took place in the Kowloon City district on Sunday for the first time since the start of the pandemic, and just a few months after restrictions on social gatherings were gradually lifted.

Hundreds of people, including children, filled a row of streets lined with Thai eateries and shops, wearing raincoats and carrying colourful water guns and buckets of water.

There were also dance performances and contests of the martial art muay thai in a nearby sports ground.

“It was supposed to be a fun communal activity,” Mr Cheung said. “But some individuals had ulterior motives.”

Since the

passage of a new national security law in 2020,

many people have been arrested in connection with speech or online posts that authorities described as “seditious” and intended to “incite hatred”.

In 2022, five speech therapists

were sentenced to 19 months in prison

over allegorical children’s books that depicted police as wolves, and that the court said instilled a hatred of government in young readers. NYTIMES