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There have been reports of police dressed as protesters destroying property to discredit the movement and the threat of San Uk Ling detention centre where there have been allegations of rape, torture and a spike in suspicious suicides. Moreover, there have also been reports that the Hong Police have used tactics to infiltrate, undermine and ultimately break up the pro-democracy group from within. Referring to the Hong Kong police using fifth-columnist tactics, a prominent member of the pro-democracy movement who asked to remain anonymous told the Express.co.uk: “There have been many examples of undercover police officers and China’s army personnel dressed as protestors, causing damage to property such as the metro, in a ploy to discredit the protestors in the eyes of the middle classes.

“Thus they are trying to divide the movement, and isolate the remaining front-line protestors for a final 'aggressive' crack down.” He added: ”China is not willing to give the middle ground, either the protestors win or China wins. “There is a genuine fear in Hong Kong of the Chinese army marching in. This white terror, of the threat of PLA invasion, will have the detrimental effect of splitting the protest movement. “When the middle class who have more to lose decide to move away from the protests, fearing it too risky. Thus exposing the frontline protesters to the fall wrath of Beijing’s "clamp down.” This is what is referred to in Hong Kong as “white terror.”

Denise Ho and Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping, Hong Kong protests

JUST IN: A systematic attack on the norms without always directly dismantling the Basic Law. It is feared, with the implementation of white terror, totalitarianism will emerge from the background without the Chinese government ever having to send in the People’s Liberation Army. Denise Ho, Hong Kong-based singer and pro-democracy activist, also told the Express.co.uk before her concert in London on Friday night, “we know that Chinese police and army commanders have been deployed alongside Hong Kong’s police". She added: "There have been many testimonies from people incarcerated in San Uk Ling detention centre, young people, who claimed to have been sexually abused. “The people want lawmakers to enter the facility and to be provided with the proof that these things have not happened there.” She added: “In the last one or two months there has been a rise in unexplained deaths, whether suicides from the top of buildings or finding numerous corpses floating in the sea.

Denise Ho, Hong Kong

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China's stocks plummet as Hong Kong protests put more pressure on X...(news) “This is something that has raised concerns in Hong Kong society. “Each and every time the Police have claimed there is nothing suspicious about these deaths and they refuse to do any reports into each incident. “Just very recently a 15-year-old girl was found dead in the sea, she was a prominent supporter of the movement, participating in various marches and rallies, and also she was a competitive swimmer so to find her dead in the sea, is very suspicious. “Hong Kong people are worried that there have been deaths that the police are covering up, but of course we have no concrete evidence this is the doings of the police.” Ms Ho added: "Unless there is an independent committee formed to investigate these incidents, I don’t think the people will trust the Police’s version of the story.” Many Hong Kongese are anxious about the city's diminishing GPD and China’s concentration of the financial and creative industries to Shanghai and Beijing.

Hong Kong

There is a fear that Beijing is determined to downgrade Hong Kong’s place as a world city, to just another urban conglomeration with greater China, taming its dynamism, dismantling its individuality. Countering the argument for more democracy is that Hong Konger's didn't have universal suffrage under British rule. And one pro-Beijing protester in London argued how China needs more time to become a democracy, he said: "Britain and other European nations had hundreds of years to develop democracy, China needs more time, just give China more time.” He referred to China’s current dictatorship under President Xi Jinping as a means to an end, and that end will be eventual reform and the flourishing of democracy within China. But in reality, the means usually becomes the end, and the current means is to brutally crackdown on any calls for increased democracy and insure China is centrally controlled under the firm hand of one man, President Jinping. Recently, US Republican Ted Cruz has said there is an “overwhelming bipartisan support" in the US Congress for the people of Hong Kong, and he said he was pressing for the Senate to take up and pass a Hong Kong Human Rights Act.

Hong Kong protest timeline

The act includes measures like annual reviews of the Chinese territory's special economic status and the imposition of sanctions on those who undermine its autonomy. "We should continue to look for tools to stand up for human rights and for democracy and to speak clearly against repression and torture and murder," he said. But, President Donald Trump said in an Oval Office meeting with China’s vice premier that he thinks protests in Hong Kong are winding down and that a partial trade accord the two leaders reached on Friday will be a “great deal” for the city’s residents.

Hong Kong

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