The month of November 2019 in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests started with protesting in malls and police getting into homes and malls to arrest protesters. The death of Chow Tsz-lok in Sheung Tak, Tseung Kwan O had led to more protests. In mid November, there were city-wide strikes which lasted for more than a week. Hong Kong Police officers fired tear gas in Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and nearby areas. In late November, the District Council elections were held. The pro-democracy camp in conjunction with the localist groups got more than 80 per cent of the seats and gained control of 17 out of 18 District Councils.
Events
1 November
More than 100 people staged a flash mob protest in Central despite being confronted by police officers who warned the group they risked being prosecuted. They carried a huge yellow banner calling for an end to "police brutality", as they occupied one side of the road.
2 November
Protests took place in Causeway Bay, Wan Chai, Central and Tsim Sha Tsui on 2 November, each of which is described below:
Causeway Bay election rally
128 pro-democracy candidates organised election rallies on the central lawn of Victoria Park, although the police had earlier banned rallies at that location. The candidates argued that, according to Chapter 9.11 of the Guidelines on Election-related Activities in respect of the District Council Election, the police would not need to be informed if pre-election meetings consisted of fewer than 50 supporters. In the early afternoon, thousands of people entered Victoria Park. At 3:15 pm, the police declared that the people were participating in an illegal assembly and warned them to leave immediately. Most of the people ignored the police warning, and continued to walk to Victoria Park.
Subsequently, some protesters built road blocks nearby. In response, the police fired multiple rounds of tear gas into the Park. Tear gas was also fired outside Hong Kong Central Library and Sogo Hong Kong. After that, protesters left Causeway Bay for Tin Hau and Wan Chai. Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowd in Wan Chai. Some protesters set up road blocks in Wan Chai and vandalised the Queen's Road East branch of state-run Xinhua News Agency.
Central rally
Two rallies, to which the police did not object, took place in the afternoon at Edinburgh Place and Chater Garden in Central. Soon after both rallies had begun, the police ordered the organisers to end the rallies immediately at 5:10 pm and to ask all participants to leave by 5:30 pm. By evening violence in Causeway Bay had spread to Central: Protesters threw Molotov cocktails on Lung Wo Road, and set up barricades on Connaught Road Central, blocking traffic; police fired tear gas to disperse protesters. A Yoshinoya branch was trashed, and Central MTR station was closed after protesters vandalised several exits. An argument started between a firefighter and police when the former accused police of hitting his firetruck with a tear gas projectile. Amidst the tension, the police pushed the firefighter, then pepper sprayed journalists filming the scene and pushed them away. A first-aider suffered severe back burns after reportedly being hit by a tear gas canister.
On 12 December 2023, four who had taken part in the rallies were jailed for between 35 and 45 months after having been convicted of rioting and other offences.
Tsim Sha Tsui rally
A rally at 4 pm in Park Lane Shopper's Boulevard was attended by a hundred participants who sang protest songs. Some protesters shouted slogans and wore face masks. A large squad of riot police arrived at the rally from Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station. They threatened to arrest those wearing face masks and disperse the crowds. After quarrels with protesters, the police stood down and returned to the police station.
3 November mall sit-ins
Several sit-in protests were held at shopping malls across Hong Kong. One took place around Cityplaza, a mall in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island, early in the evening. Entrances of two restaurants were spray painted. Outside Cityplaza, a Mandarin-speaking man slashed several people with a knife. The police stormed into the plaza. Outside the mall, Andrew Chiu, a Democratic Party district councillor representing Tai Koo Shing West, had his left ear bitten off by the man. A crowd then punched and kicked the man in retaliation. Joey Kwok, a freelance photojournalist working for Stand News, and Tang Chak-man, a journalism student at Hong Kong Baptist University and a member of its Students' Union Editorial Board, were both arrested while reporting at the scene. Stand News described the arrest as unreasonable, saying in a statement that Kwok was wearing a press vest, filming the police from a distance when he was surrounded and subdued by riot officers. Roland Chin, the head of Baptist University, said he was "deeply concerned" with the well-being of Tang, noting that university staff and a lawyer had been sent to assist the student.
Private details of a police officer's wedding in Tseung Kwan O were leaked. Protesters set up road blocks and threw objects at the police. Police attempted to disperse the crowd by firing tear gas rounds. Chow Tsz-lok, a 22-year-old student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, was later found unconscious on the second floor of a nearby car park after plunging from the third floor in the early hours of 4 November.
4 November
Six reporters staged a silent protest at a routine police press conference. They each wore a safety helmet with one Chinese character, which, when combined, read "investigate police violence, stop police lies" (Chinese: 查警暴止警謊). The police stopped its online live stream two minutes later and cancelled the entire press conference 20 minutes later. Bon Ko, Police Public Relations Branch superintendent, suspended the conference as the reporters refused to either take off their helmets or leave the venue. Later that day, the police staged a live broadcast on Facebook to express their views on the protests over the weekend.
Five defendants, aged between 19 and 24, were charged with possessing explosive substances after Molotov cocktails were found in a flat in Wan Chai. Three attended the hearing at the Eastern Magistrates' Courts while two remained hospitalised. Charges had to be dropped due to a spelling error by the Department of Justice. Upon the release of the trio, they were immediately re-arrested by a dozen officers in riot gear who had entered the court building, while more than 100 police officers were waiting outside the premises. The defence counsel argued that the arrests inside court premises without the magistrate's approval constituted contempt of court. The judiciary responded that the ground floor was a public area and not under its management.
5 November Tsim Sha Tsui rally
Over a thousand people in Guy Fawkes masks attended a flash gathering at 8 pm at the Urban Council Centenary Garden, Tsim Sha Tsui to mark the one month anniversary of the introduction of the Hong Kong's anti-mask law. The exact venue of the gathering was only announced thirty minutes before the start. The crowd occupied roads around the gardenand a few shops vandalised; Hunghom Café, a restaurant seen as pro-government, was targeted. At 9 pm, the police deployed a water cannon truck to the area, firing tear liquid at the crowd, some of which were reporters.
Crowds gathered near Kwong Ming Court and Sheung Tak Estate in Tseung Kwan O late at night to express dissatisfaction over the severe injuries suffered by a 22-year-old Chow Tsz-lok two days before. Police fired tear gas at protesters in response to the blockade of roads started by protesters.
8 November
Chow Tsz-lok died at 8:09 am at the age of 22, after succumbing to a cardiac arrest, as a result of fall injuries sustained on 4 November. The police were criticised for intentionally obstructing the paramedics from attending to him, causing a delay in treatment, as it took the ambulance 19 minutes to reach Chow, seven minutes longer than their service pledge of 12 minutes; however, the police denied that they obstructed paramedics. Leung Kwok-lai, the Fire Services Department Assistant Chief Ambulance Officer (Kowloon East) stated that the ambulance assigned to Chow was blocked by buses and private vehicles but that the ambulance did not come in contact with the police that were on duty.
During the 2020 Coroner's Court inquest, Lai Wai-kit, a firefighter who administered first aid to Chow, testified that anti-government protesters delayed their arrival by blocking a road leading to Chow's location, but believed this to have been unintentional. In another testimony, Cheng Kwun-ming, a senior ambulanceman and the team leader for ambulance A344 assigned to Chow, clarified that he had asked the team to drive another route to the parking lot due to a traffic jam on Tong Ming Street, but that they were blocked by an illegally-parked vehicle at the Kwong Ying House and thus walked over 100 metres into the parking lot with their equipment. He said that they did not see the police nearby when they arrived at the Kwong Ying House.
Angered and saddened by the news of the death, students from HKUST vandalised several stores perceived to be pro-Beijing and the residence of HKUST president Wei Shyy, demanding him to condemn police brutality. Shyy later released an open letter demanding the government to conduct "thorough and independent investigation" regarding Chow's death. Flash mob rallies mourning the death of Chow were held in various districts including Kwun Tong and Central during lunch hours.
At night, thousands of mourners returned to the car park of Sheung Tak Estate and laid down flowers and origami for the deceased student. Meanwhile, protesters began clashing with the police in Causeway Bay and Mong Kok. At the junction of Hamilton Street and Nathan Road in Yau Ma Tei, the police fired a warning shot to the sky.
9 November vigil
Thousands of people gathered in Tamar Park at night to mourn "martyrs" who had died for the protests. They prayed for the deceased and chanted slogans urging Hong Kong people to take revenge. The organiser claimed that 100,000 people attended the vigil, while the police put the figure at 7,500.
10 November
Protesters gathered in various shopping malls in Hong Kong including New Town Plaza in Sha Tin, and Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong, responding online calls to "shop" in these malls. Conflicts first erupted in Sha Tin when protesters vandalised the Sha Tin station and trashed a Maxim restaurant. Inside Festival Walk, protesters vandalised the branch of SimplyLife (which was under Maxim's operation). The police then stormed the mall and beat the protesters with police batons and pepper-sprayed them. The police also indiscriminately pushed and beat people who were retreating down an elevator, and shot pepper balls at people who have verbally insulted them. Journalists and shoppers were then forced to leave the mall.
The police and protesters also clashed with each other in Tsuen Wan, as the Tsuen Wan riot police officers faced allegations that they have gang raped a young girl. During the confrontation between the police and the protester, the police shot a tear gas canister at the arm of a reporter from Now TV. The protesters then retreated to Citywalk in Tsuen Wan. Scuffles between the police and the protesters also occurred in Tuen Mun, Mong Kok, Tai Po, and Tseung Kwan O, near the car park where Chow fell. The Northern District saw the first usage of tear gas by the police after residents disgruntled by the police's search on teenagers who were playing basketball attempted to argue with officers near Ching Ho Estate, Sheung Shui. Riot police climbed over a 3-meter gate of Kingswood Villas, Tin Shui Wai, and conducted arrests inside. Disgruntled residents later then confronted with the police.
11–15 November city-wide strike
Protesters disrupted the morning commute on 11 November as part of a plan for a city-wide strike, calling for students, business owners and employees to skip work and boycott classes, as a response to HKUST student Alex Chow's mysterious fall to his death in a multi-storey car park. The protesters continued the strike over the following five days.