The MTR Corp have announced that Yuen Long MTR station will shut at 2pm, some five hours ahead of a planned sit-in to mark the three-month anniversary of the July 21 attack on protesters and commuters there.
The railway operator said that services on all MTR lines, light rail, and MTR buses will end at 10pm today, and that crowd management measures may have to be implemented at some stations. The Airport Express will run as normal.
It said the decision to stop trains and buses from operating was made after conducting a “review on the progress of repair works and a joint risk assessment with relevant government departments.”
The announcement comes as protesters plan to gather at the MTR station at 7:30pm this evening to commemorate the Yuen Long station attack.
We are soon approaching 3 months after the July 21 mob attack in Yuen Long.
This poster, illustrating the scene when a young father kneeled in front of the white-shirted attackers, asks #HongKong people not to forget the incident. pic.twitter.com/i72JVomn3N
— Eric Cheung (@EricCheungwc) October 20, 2019
The incident, often referred to by protesters as the 721 incident, saw dozens of men in white shirts indiscriminately attack commuters, journalists, and protesters returning home from a pro-democracy rally on Hong Kong Island that day.
The attack lasted for at least half an hour, during which time the white-shirted beat people with metal rods and bamboo sticks inside the train station and even inside a train carriage.
The incident saw scores of people injured, and 30 people have been arrested so far in connection with the attack, some of them with links to organized crime. At least four suspects have been charged, and their court case is expected to resume on Friday, Oct. 25.
The incident drew widespread condemnation of the already-embattled police force due to the fact that it took officers nearly 40 minutes to respond to the onslaught. Police were later seen in videos from the night failing to take action against armed men in the vicinity of the station believed to have taken part in the assaults.
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