A million march in Hong Kong over eroding civil liberties
Hundreds of HONG KONG — thousands of people filled the sweltering streets of Hong Kong on Sunday in an immense protest against fraying freedoms that culminated after midnight with the police firing pepper spray and striking participants with batons.
The demonstration — organizers said they counted more than 1 million participants, or nearly 1 in 7 Hong Kong residents — was one of the largest in the city’s history. Focused on a government plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, the march was a striking display of fear and anger over an erosion of the civil liberties that have long set this former British colony apart from the rest of the country.
It was a dramatic rebuke of Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, and raised the stakes in her contentious push to adopt legislation the ruling Communist Party in Beijing has endorsed.
Streets around the central government’s offices were packed with thousands of people waving signs saying “No China Extradition” and “No Evil Law,” reminiscent of the pro-democracy rallies five years ago that paralyzed several of the city’s commercial and government districts and captivated the world. Riot police officers with helmets, batons and shields tried to remove the protesters, who pushed metal barriers and tossed bottles and sticks at police, shouting, “Communist dogs!”
Sunday’s demonstration had been largely peaceful, though tempers flared near the government offices as the protesters, whose march had slowed to a standstill in some parts, urged police to free up more lanes for them to proceed. Crowds booed when police buses, with lights flashing, arrived.
The protesters had set off from Victoria Park in the afternoon. Many wore white as a symbol of justice and also mourning in Chinese culture.
Police estimated there were 240,000 protesters at the peak of the protest, but organizers, giving a figure topping 1 million, called it the biggest rally since 1989. As the crowd poured through the canyons of skyscrapers, it seemed to surpass the 2014 pro-democracy rally that drew more than half a million people.
The organizers of Sunday’s march said they hoped the numbers would show the breadth of disagreement with the extradition plan, which has stirred worries that people in Hong Kong, including foreign visitors, would be sent to face trial in Communist Party-controlled courts in mainland China.
The protesters directed much of their opposition toward Lam, the chief executive, calling for her to step down and booing as they passed a large screen displaying footage of her at a news conference. Lam declined to answer questions about the protests Sunday, but the huge public outcry puts her in a difficult spot before a vote on the bill expected later this month.
Late Sunday the government, responding to the protests, issued a statement saying the bill would prevent Hong Kong from becoming a haven for fugitives and pledging to “continue to engage, listen and allay concerns through calm and rational discussion.”
The turnout underscored the deepening anxiety that many residents feel over Beijing’s tightening grip over Hong Kong, a semiautonomous territory. The Communist Party had promised a “high degree of autonomy” before Britain returned the territory to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, but many feel that the city’s freedoms are steadily eroding under Beijing’s rule.
“I think this law will take away our freedoms if it is implemented,” said Peter Lam, a 16-year-old high school student. “We will not have the right to express ourselves. So we must stand up and express ourselves today.”
Young people and families were prominent in the crowd, with parents bouncing toddlers on their hips and leading young children by the hand. One child clutched a sign saying, “Protect my future.”
The protesters’ numbers were so large that many protesters said they were still stuck in subway stations waiting to join, and some trains were skipping stations because of overcrowding.
Police said that officers used pepper spray after five or six masked men tried to occupy a major thoroughfare near the route of the march.
The proposed legislation would allow for suspects in some criminal cases to be turned over to jurisdictions with which Hong Kong has no formal extradition agreement. The immediate goal is to enable the government to send a Hong Kong man to Taiwan, where he is accused of having killed his girlfriend.
But there is deep concern about the broader implications of the legislation, particularly enabling extraditions to mainland China.
Hong Kong’s courts are far more transparent and independent than those in the mainland, where President Xi Jinping has been intensifying a crackdown on civil society. Worries about the reach of mainland China’s legal system have been made worse by the disappearance of people from Hong Kong into mainland custody, including a Chinese billionaire and men associated with a company that published books unflattering to mainland political leaders.