Angry protesters storm parliament
CITY chief executive Carrie Lam condemned “the extreme use of violence” by masked protesters who stormed and ransacked Hong Kong’s parliament yesterday in an unprecedented challenge to China’s authority.
The semi-autonomous financial hub has been thrown into crisis by weeks of massive demonstrations over a bill that would allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland.
But on Monday – the 22nd anniversary of the city’s handover to China – anger spilled over as groups of young, hard line protesters, broke into the Legislative Council.
They hung the city’s colonial-era flag in the debating chamber, scrawled messages such as “Hong Kong is not China” and defaced the city’s emblematic seal with spraypaint. Police charged into the building just after midnight.
The events pose an unparalleled challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has left Ms Lam to handle the protests.
Ms Lam, the city’s Beijing-appointed leader, described the scenes of vandalism as “heartbreaking and shocking”.
“This is something we should seriously condemn because nothing is more important than the rule of law in Hong Kong,” she said.
Protesters said they were compelled to storm parliament because their concerns were going unheard.
“We have marched, staged sit-ins … but the government has remained unmoved,” said Joey, a 26-year-old protester, as she walked over shattered glass inside the building.
The legislature was closed yesterday.
Under the terms of Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997, the city enjoys rights and liberties unseen on the mainland.
But many residents accuse Beijing of reneging on that deal with the help of unelected leaders.
Chinese state media dismissed the protests as “mob violence”. “Chinese society is all too aware that a zero-tolerance policy is the only remedy for such destructive behaviour”, the state-run Global Times wrote in an editorial.