Chaos Created In Senseless Acid Attacks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) September 20, 2009 -- People in Hong Kong remain edgy and some streets closed, as acid attacks continue.
Mongkok has become almost a ghost town, following acid attacks in the famous Ladies Market, an area that is usually filled with wall-to-wall people, with one of the highest ratios of pedestrian traffic in the world.

Two attackers threw acid at two passers-by, splashing other shoppers. Ten people were hurt.

In the earlier attacks, acid-filled bottles were thrown from a Mongkok building onto the pedestrians below, by unknown persons. Twenty-four people were left with burns to their faces, shoulders, limbs and feet.

Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's leader, condemned the attack, saying it was "cold-blooded and evil" and the assailant was "scum of the society". Investigators have posted a 900,000 Hong Kong dollar($116,097)reward for information leading to an arrest.

As the neighbourhood remains on full alert, dozens of police patrol Mongkok's normally chaotic streets. One man has been arrested.

Zinjaing Province, mainland China, thousands of Han Chinese staged demonstrations after reports that ethnic Muslim Uyghur's were behind a rash of hit-and-run syringe attacks. Five protesters died in the demonstration and 14 were injured. Security forces are on standby in the area, including helicopters, as demonstrators clash with police. Schools were closed and the city cordoned off.

Tear gas was used to disperse the protesters, as long-simmering ethnic tensions erupted into riots. Han Chinese is the country's dominant ethnic group; the Uyghur are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority who consider Xinjiang their homeland.

The past month more than 400 Han Chinese have been stabbed with tainted syringes. In spite of the warning that offenders may face the death penalty, police have received 77 reports of syringe attacks.

Xinhua, a blogger at Chinese Digital Times, also quoted an official statement that hospitals in Urumqi have treated 531 victims of syringe attacks. "Some of those who said they had been stabbed actually suffered from mosquito stings and other psychogenic reasons", said Xinhua. Uyghur were among the victims.

Police arrested 45 suspects with 12 remaining in custody. Three of the four people prosecuted are known drug users.

Last attacks come just two months after inter-ethnic violence in Urumqui killed nearly 200 and injured 1,700. "People are angry that the government is not doing much about Ugyhurs' needle stabbing," said one local resident.

According to the Central Asia Caucasus Institute in Maryland, serves as a convenient drug-trafficking route, lying between opium-growing regions of Afghanistan and southeast Asia and the heroin markets in central Asia, Russia and Europe. It is estimated that more than 60,000 people in Xinjiang are HIV-positive.
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acid attacks in Hong Kong     needle stabbing in China