Hong Kong: MTR suspends train services on all lines amid escalating protests

Mass Transit Railway (MTR) has said on Friday it is suspending train services on all of its lines in light of the damages and fires at its stations amid the protests. The protests in Hong Kong have been turning more and more violent leading to immense material damage. Violence due to protests escalated in Hong Kong after Carrie Lam imposed a ban on face masks earlier today. The decision by MTR came has come after rioters went on a rampage committing damaging and arson at a number of stations and allegedly at a train.

Earlier today, Hong Kong's embattled leader Carrie Lam invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years in a dramatic move intended to quell escalating violence in the Chinese-ruled city.

Lam, speaking at a news conference, said a ban on face masks would take effect on Saturday under the emergency laws that allow authorities to "make any regulations whatsoever" in whatever they deem to be in the public interest.

The emergency laws allow curfews, censorship of the media, and control of harbors, ports, and transport, although Lam did not specify any particular action that might follow beyond the mask ban.

Nearly four months of anti-government protests have plunged Hong Kong into its biggest political crisis since its handover from Britain to China in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that granted it autonomy and broad freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland.

#Breaking: #MTR says it suspending train services on all of its lines in light of the damages and fires at its stations

— Timmy Sung (@timmysung) October 4, 2019