Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Hong Kong legislators brawl over extradition
camp attempted to seat Abraham Razack, also known as Abraham Shek, who had been named earlier in the week through another committee and a contested interpretation of council rules to replace pro-democrat James To Kun-sun as head of the Bills Committee. To had stalled passage of the legislation over two sessions, and Razack was seen as the best chance to push it through before the July recess.
But pro-democracy legislators continued to argue that To is the legitimate chief of the committee guiding discussion of the proposed new law.
Both they and their opponents had scheduled rival meetings on the same topic in the same Legislative Council meeting room on Saturday, starting just 30 minutes apart.
The two rival committees both claimed to be in charge of scrutinizing the new law before deciding on whether to vote on it.
Wu Chi-wai, the Democratic Party chairman who tried to stop Shek from presiding over the meeting, shouted at him, saying, “Don’t be a sinner for a thousand years! Don’t sell out Hong Kong.”
The amendments expand the scope for the transfer of criminal suspects to China and remove the legislature’s right to scrutinize individual extradition decisions filed by Hong Kong’s chief executive.
Saturday’s legislative scuffle came weeks after a Hong Kong court handed down prison sentences of up to 16 months to eight leaders of 2014 pro-democracy protests on public nuisance charges. The sentences were seen as an effort by the Hong Kong government to draw a line under the protests amid pressure from Beijing.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said Friday the government would “further explain the proposed fugitive law change to the public,” according to the government’s press office.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said the amendments must be passed to close a “loophole” under which the government has been unable to extradite a Hong Kong man, Chan Tong-kai, accused of killing his girlfriend in Taiwan last year.