At least 10 people were injured when fireworks were shot from a moving car into a crowd of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.

Video on social media showed people running for cover as fiery trails were shot towards them outside a police station in Tin Shui Wai district.

The activists had been supporting a small number of protesters who had been detained inside the station.

Tensions are high in Hong Kong after weeks of anti-government protests.

The incident early on Wednesday came as more than 40 activists appeared in court charged with rioting, after a protest on Sunday ended in violent clashes with police.

If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison.

There is an absolutely tonne of footage flying in on Telegram in public & private groups; I’ll do my best to post it all here. This shows a better angle of the attack from above. You can see the fireworks coming from car windows, straight at the crowd in front of the cop shop: pic.twitter.com/8rlMyt6EbO

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Campaigner Jack Hazlewood posted videos of the attacks collated from the private messaging app Telegram and other online sources.

Footage from Tin Shui Wai showed the car from which the attack was launched speeding away. The attackers have not been identified.

This is probably the best footage available of the incident – it’s from the perspective of someone directly under the line of fire. Truly terrifying. Ask yourself how anyone could think they’d get away with doing this in front of a police station – welcome to HK today. pic.twitter.com/YSV5FBks3i

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Police “strongly condemned” those responsible and said they were investigating.

It was the second time this month that pro-democracy activists had been attacked.

On 21 July, men dressed in white shirts and believed to be triad gangsters assaulted protesters and passers-by in the Yuen Long area, after some demonstrators had stormed China’s central government building and defaced the national emblem.

Protesters alleged that the gangsters were acting at the behest of the authorities, a claim strongly denied by the government and police.

This footage from a car dashcam clearly shows the shots from the fireworks leaving the car, directed straight at the crowd: pic.twitter.com/ArvU6YCcqm

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China has largely allowed Hong Kong’s authorities to deal with the protests but fears are growing that it could step in if disruption continues.

In a rare intervention, China’s top policy office in Hong Kong condemned Sunday’s violent clashes as “horrendous incidents” that have caused “serious damage to the rule of law”.

A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office insisted that the territory’s “top priority” was to “restore social order”.

How did we get here?

Demonstrations in Hong Kong began over a controversial bill that would have enabled extraditions to mainland China.

The government has since paused work on the bill, but protesters want it withdrawn completely.

The demonstrations have also broadened into a wider movement, with activists demanding democratic reform and an independent inquiry into police violence.

As a former British colony, Hong Kong has its own legal and judicial systems, and has been promised “a high degree of autonomy” from the Chinese government except in foreign and defence affairs.

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