Hong Kong follows France’s face mask ban

A masked protester holds up his hand to represent the protesters' five demands as he walks next to a banner reading "Hong Kong police deliberately murder" in Hong Kong on Saturday, Oct. 5,2019. Becoming a tightly controlled city like all the others in China, its special freedoms extinguished, is the future that protesters say they are fighting to avoid for Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

HONG Kong’s ban on face masks at protests could be similar to a law introduced in France this year – but other such restrictions in Europe had little force, according to legal experts.

Hong Kong began banning masks from Saturday to try to curb increasingly violent social unrest that has gripped the city for about four months – turmoil triggered by a now-shelved extradition Bill that would have allowed the transfer of Hongkongers to mainland China’s opaque legal system.