An Eye For An Eye

12 Aug, 2026

CW: eye injuries, blood

On 11 August 2019, HK police shot a street medic in the face.

It was not the first, nor would it be the last serious eye injury from ‘non lethal’ rounds (that we know of/ was captured on camera, because, you know), but the incident marks the point from which a bandaged bloodied eye becomes part of the HK protest iconography, and the tone of the pro-democracy takes a turn darker. The era of ‘laam chau’ begins.

The HK police shot ‘K’ in the eye with a beanbag round in Tsim Sha Tsui on11 August 2019. The photos of the immediate bloody aftermath, including that of the projectile clearly cracking open the goggles, would become some of the most iconic images of the pro-democracy protests.

The police shooting kicked off something dark. Within hours, protest art turned raw and bloody. The crescendo of police brutality has been building over such a short time that HKers were still too in shock and denial to articulate: the blinding is a monstrous, deliberate act, gun pointed directly at the pupil, hand poised to rip out eyes.

Within hours, protest art turned vengeful. And a new slogan for the HK pro-democracy protest was born - 黑警還眼, which translates roughly to "Return the eye, corrupt cops", or something we're all more familiar with "An eye for an eye". (Read more about other HK pro-democracy slogans here)

We saw ambigrams - word art which take on different meanings when viewed from various orientations - take on the incident and the slogan. The below is the word mash of 黑/警 (“corrupt cop”) and 還/眼 (“return the eye”), which you can see if you flip the image on its side.

You: Ah but ‘an eye for an eye’ is a bad thing, because we’d all go blind. HKers: Yes, and?

I joke, but also not. It is after all, what the idea which would later be called ‘Burnism’ is all about.

There were many, many '黑警還眼's at the Occupy HKIA in the days following the police shooting of the street medic. The seething anger behind those words is key to understanding why ugly fights broke out between protesters and a dude who was accused of being an undercover mainland cop (and yes, he was, in fact, undercover mainland cop, and also a dude who was accused of shit stirring (and yes, he was, in fact, a Global Times reporter).

It turns out that when people say they want vengeance because they can't trust institutions to grant justice, they will claw their way to revenge.

It turns out that if we lose an eye, we will blind you too. It turns out that if we burn, you will burn with us.

K's serious eye injury at the hands of the HK police popularized another protest slogan that plays on the idea of vision: 黃藍是政見 黑白是良知 ('to be pro-democracy or pro-Beijing is a matter of political views, to know black and white is a matter of conscience'). What happened on August 11 should be cut and dry. The cops shot a street medic in the face. Those are the facts. Those who refuse to see this choose to be blind.

And of course, we have this solgan in ambigram form too. The below says 良知 (conscience) and 還👁️. Like the 7.21 Yuen Long attacks, HK police shooting a first aider in the eye was seen as an unconscionable act, a point of no return. Because... what was the police aiming even at in the first place?

The wounded eye from that point on became a HK potent symbol for police brutality. Artists combined the bauhinia with the eye, as if to say: HK is ruptured by state-backed violence, there's no going back. But the blinding has also opened people’s eyes to our new reality: we are awake now, there is no going back.

To raise awareness of the police brutality citizens were facing, HKers mounted the #Eye4HK campaign, where friends and allies showed solidarity with pictures of themselves/ characters with their right eye covered.

There was a lot of art made for #Eye4HK campaign and we highly encourage folks to search those tags on the Hell Site and Instagram. There was even a tribute on the original Lennon wall in Prague:

And a few more from the #Eye4HK campaign:

HKers slapped the injured eye - referencing K's injury, signifying police brutality - on everything. Our Linpigs have injured eyes…

Our kongnuis have injured eyes…

Our kongnams have injured eyes…

Our cute critters have injured eyes…

Our Bulbasaurs and Pikachus have injured eyes... (don’t ask, for another post)

Our Mei from Overwatch have injured eyes… (don’t ask, for another post)

And... whatever is going on here:

The unfortunate thing of course was that K would not be the last person to be shot in the eye by the HK police. On 29 Sep, HKPF shot a rubber bullet point blank at the head of Veby Mega Indah, an Indonesian journalist, permanently blinding her right eye.

You can read more about Veby Mega Indah and her fight for justice over her eye injury here (CW: Graphic photo of the aftermath of HK police blinding her)

As with the case of K, no police officer was ever held accountable for the blinding of Veby Mega Indah. It’s not that the HK government doesn’t know who did it - oh no, they just don’t want to punish anyone. Because they can do that now.

Which brings us to Lady Justice. No longer truly blind, but definitely blinded. A potent symbol for the sorry state of rule of law in HK, and the dim prospects of K, or any of the HKers who have been injured by the police, to ever receive justice.

The symbol of the injured eye lives on in HK's Lady Liberty (read more about the pro-democracy symbol here), styled as a first aider with broken goggles in tribute to K. It's a statement of defiance: you may wound us, but still we go on, flag & spirits raised, until our vision for HK is restored.

PS. Officially, I think, the HK police ruptured 3 eyeballs during the HK pro-democracy protests in 2019. Although ‘officially’ is not the best term, as HKPF have denied all responsibility, and not one officer had been made accountable for the injuries. And I’m sure there are many others injured who never got the press, for obvious reasons.

PPS. 'Non lethal' weapons are a hazard to eyeballs (sorry, it's NYT link)

PPPS. Even though the exact type of bean bag round was id'ed, right down to average speed and effective area, HK police went 'eh, could have been anything' and insisted K should just go to the police station and request an investigation. Which. Hah.

And if you want to know how the HK government felt about her years later, here's SCMP, the semi-state mouthpiece nowadays, talking about her. More fucked up still, former chief executive Leung Chun-ying has offered a bounty for identifying her. Which. Hah.