Omar Dabbagh reports from Hong Kong
Charlie* starts her day by speaking to her friends and fellow protesters on social media before determining whether she will head out and be "valiant", or peaceful.
Then she packs her bag.
"First I pack the eye mask, then I pack the gas mask, then the salient water … and then I go out… and depending on where we have the protest I would decide what role I want to take,” she tells SBS News.
The protester, who is in her 20s, has to keep her real name a secret out of fear of retribution from the local government and Beijing.
Charlie says there are two main roles for protesters in Hong Kong, and those roles can change depending on how demonstrations play out.
“During this whole movement there are the Yong Mo Pai, known as ‘the valiant bunch’ - who are more at the forefront,” she tells SBS News.
"They’re more daring ... they are more of the people you’ve seen them rush into the legislative complex on July 1, they also make road blockages.
During this whole movement there are the Yong Mo Pai, known as ‘the valiant bunch’ ... Then there are the peaceful protesters. - Charlie, Hong Kong Protester
“Then there are the peaceful protesters, right, we call them the Wo Lei Fei - which means ‘peace’, ‘rationality’ and ‘non-violence’.
"And I feel like since the 2014 Occupy Central movement, the roles have kind of disintegrated … for example, a person doesn’t necessarily take up the role of just the valiant person.”
Deciding which role to play
After its first weekend of peaceful protests since the anti-government movement began in June, Hong Kong currently appears calm. But that mood could evaporate very quickly, should a resolution not be reached between protest groups and the Hong Kong government.
For more than 11 weeks now, the world has watched on: captivated by the millions of people taking to the streets in peaceful defiance, and horrified by images showing violent confrontations between police and some of the protesters.
A protester throws back a tear gas canister during clashes with police on 12 June. Source: Getty Images
People within the protest movement, which they describe as having no central figure, say they are fighting for freedom.
“It’s very bottom-up,” Charlie says.
"Unlike Occupy 2014, there’s no centre. Social media becomes a decentering source ... people seem to be coming out of morality, out of justice, and I feel this movement has pushed a lot of youth, a lot of young people, to utilise their skill-sets.”
Once she's arrived at a protest location, she explains, she decides what role she will play.
"I know myself, I started off as a peaceful protester ... which means I usually walk the rally and then I’ll go later and ... if people start building road blockages, or if the valiants are ready to kind of combat the riot police, I will be there to collect the resources, for example, helmets. I’ll help to pass the first aid resources.
If people are ready to combat the riot police, I will be there to collect the resources, for example, helmets. - Charlie
"However I feel like that role does not necessarily have to stay the same. Sometimes I will go to the front, I will help with tying the blockages. I will help shelter, if you have long umbrellas, I help shelter those who are tying from surveillance cameras.
Charlie explains that within such an unprecedented movement there is a range of what a protester’s role can be.
"It’s a spectrum, and it’s kind of depending on that day, whether or not I agree with the general direction of the movement. It's very fluid, depending on what frontrunners have in mind that day - so my role also changes, to accommodate their needs."
Sexual violence claims
The protests were sparked in opposition to a bill that would have seen some people from Hong Kong extradited to mainland China. Hong Kong’s legislative assembly says that bill has been shelved.
But protesters have expanded their demands to include a move from the mainland and what they call greater democracy.
Much of the focus now for protesters, though, has been on accusations of police brutality during the clashes.
Protests in Hong Kong this weekend. Source: Facebook
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong police officer was accused of sexual assault when he strip-searched a female protester.
“This girl who was being asked, or pulled to the police station, and they had to do a full body investigation,” Charlie alleges.
“The rule is if you investigate a woman’s body, you have to have female officers, but they only had three male officers, and they were eyeing the female protester up and down, and she was stripped naked completely, and it was very unacceptable … there are a lot of sexual violence cases."
At the time the initial allegations were made, Amnesty International released a statement to say it condemned the actions. But police have refuted the claims.
“The woman was wearing a dress and she struggled strongly, which explained what happened in front of the camera,” Yolanda Yu from Hong Kong police said in response.
Fact-checking unit
Police have regularly accused some of the protesters of crossing the line and using excessive violence, and have pointed to the chaos at the international airport last week - which culminated in a Chinese journalist being tied up by protesters.
But Sharron Fast, a legal analyst from Hong Kong University, claims police are not being independently monitored.
She says lawyers in Hong Kong are working to set up a fact-checking unit, to help verify claims by protesters.
Sharon Fast from Hong Kong University says she is helping set up a fact-checking unit to investigate and verify allegations of police brutality. Source: SBS News/Omar Dabbagh
"The levels of force right now on the part of the police are beyond excessive and going into the territory of lethal,” Ms Fast claims.
“The police have explained the use of force as being within their own internal procedural guidelines. That is arguably true. They are internally regulated, they are internally disciplined, so they can make a case quite clearly that we felt it was a situation of riot, for example. But they need to be independently held to account.”
Protesters took to the streets once again over the weekend. Source: Getty Images
Charlie admits at times protesters have acted “a little bit irrational”, but says people who claim protesters are too violent need to understand the context.
"People who say this have seldom or hardly been there and have the lived experience themselves. And people who say this should come down and have first-hand experience for themselves, because you don’t how brutal and how violent the police are,” she claims.
"And in comparison, we [the protesters] are just a very small force that is trying to combat a very insurmountable and institutionalised violence.”
Despite the at-times violent impasse, and threats by Beijing that it will intervene should protesters continue to disrupt, Charlie says she remains optimistic for Hong Kong’s future.
Protesters gather outside the Central Government complex in Hong Kong on 18 August. Source: Getty Images
“It’s not a battle of ideology: at the end of the day, I feel like for myself it’s a fight out of love or compassion,” she says.
"I would like to be hopeful. I feel like this movement has called out a new generation of youth. A new mentality, new consciousness."
*Name has been changed
