The images shocked Hong Kong and put the city’s authorities under a global spotlight. In shaky smartphone videos, a group of unidentified men wearing white T-shirts and wielding sticks and clubs set upon an unarmed group of residents at a subway station, some of them returning from a pro-democracy protest. The police were nowhere in sight.
On Wednesday, more than a year later, Hong Kong’s police moved decisively to address the assault — in part, by arresting a lawmaker who recorded it.
Lam Cheuk-ting, a former anti-corruption investigator, was one of two lawmakers arrested in a continuing crackdown on dissent as the Chinese Communist Party tightens its grip on the territory. As part of that effort, Hong Kong authorities are increasingly trying to change the narrative, portraying the clampdown as a necessary law-and-order remedy for a city they say is increasingly ungovernable.