Protesters renew vigil outside govt offices
Several hundred mainly student protesters gathered outside Hong Kong government offices yesterday, with some blocking traffic on a major thoroughfare, after a deadline passed for meeting their demands related to controversial extradition legislation that many see as eroding the territory’s judicial independence.
While the scene began peacefully, the presence again of protesters on busy Harcourt Rd could prompt a renewed police action to clear them — and new potentially violent confrontations.
Protest leaders have said they are determined to keep up the pressure on the administration of territory leader Carrie Lam, potentially renewing demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands into the streets in recent weeks.
Many protesters have been wary of giving their full names and some have obscured their features with facemasks as a means of guarding their identities against potential retribution from government or school authorities.
Government offices were ordered closed Friday “due to security considerations.”
After the earlier protests that were the largest and angriest in Hong Kong in years, Lam apologised and agreed to shelve the legislation, but she stopped short of scrapping it altogether.
Critics say the bill allowing extraditions to mainland China and other places is part of a campaign by Beijing to chip away at the semiautonomous region’s democratic institutions.