Escalating Their Campaign Into a Push for Political Freedom, Protesters Return to Hong Kong’s Streets
Protesters once again occupied the political heart of Hong Kong Friday morning after the embattled administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam refused to meet an ultimatum for her resignation and the withdrawal of a divisive extradition bill.
Chanting a Christian hymn that has become the anthem of Hong Kong’s freedom movement, thousands of black-clad demonstrators streamed into the forecourt of the Legislative Council, accompanied by democratic lawmakers. They demanded the unconditional release of all protesters arrested to date and an investigation into the police handling of the demonstrations that have rocked the semi-autonomous enclave for the past 10 days.
Shortly after 11: a.m., large crowds of protesters chanting “Withdraw [the bill]!” erected barricades on Harcourt Road—a key thoroughfare in front of the government headquarters that was the center of the 79-day street occupation in 2014 known as the Umbrella Revolution. A banner hung across the road read “This Is Hong Kong Not China.”
Urged by recently freed activist Joshua Wong, crowds then marched on Police Headquarters at Arsenal Street, just under a kilometer away. They began taunting police and chanting for the release of prisoners. Officers retreated behind metal gates as demonstrators occupied the street and dragged barriers across adjacent Hennessy Road, another vital artery. Protesters then plastered the headquarters with photographs purported to be of people injured by police at earlier demonstrations.
Addressing the crowd through a microphone, Wong urged protesters to lay siege to the building and said “[Police Commissioner] Stephen Lo has to come down and face Hongkongers.” He told TIME at the scene: “It’s time for the police to apologize.” In an emotional speech that followed, Legislator Eddie Chu called pro-establishment politicians “dogs.”
Democratic lawmaker Hui Chi-fung addressed protesters saying “We’ve never had so many people surround [police] HQ. So, all the police officers here, look around at all these angry young people, those who are telling the truth. I ask you to come out immediately to face them.”
Other demonstrators took up positions by the Central Government Offices and nearby Tamar Park. The approach to the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army, which overlooks the protest zone, was cordoned off. Signs festooned around the area read “No Freedom” and called for students to be exonerated.
Just after 12:00 noon, police Senior Superintendent Yolanda Yu called on the crowds to peacefully end their occupation and leave the area. She said police negotiators would meet with protesters.
Karmen, a 20-year-old student, said she did not think the government would withdraw the bill, but nevertheless “even when you know what the result will be, you still have to show up to show unity. You struggle to survive before you die.”
Student unions and other groups have been calling on Hongkongers to commit acts of “civil disobedience” in a movement that has widened into a rebellion for greater political freedom and become a deepening embarrassment for Beijing. Many protesters wave the Union Jack, or the colonial Hong Kong flag, as a repudiation of Chinese sovereignty.
“This is a long-term war and we need to be strategizing next steps,” said Jeff, a 24-year-old protester outside the legislature.
Writing Thursday in British newspaper the Independent, Wong and fellow campaigner Alex Chow suggested that the movement’s aims were no longer even confined to Hong Kong.
“Our long-term hopes rely on whether we can pressurize the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to devolve its power to the people and implement genuine electoral democracy at various administrative and community levels,” they said. “We must remember that a democratic Hong Kong could lead to a more democratic China.”
Many in Taiwan likewise hope for a freer China and have been staging rallies in support of the Hong Kong demonstrations. As protesters gathered in Hong Kong Friday, a man with a microphone read aloud a message of support from the island that Beijing regards as a renegade province: “Please don’t give up on what you are fighting to protect. You have awakened so many people who were asleep.”
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Justice, Teresa Cheng, apologized for the extradition bill Friday morning, saying that the government had “learned a hard lesson.”
The latest protests follow days of unrest. On June 9, huge numbers of people—more than a million, according to organizers—marched to protest a bill that would, for the first time, have allowed the extradition of fugitives to mainland China. The government says the bill is necessary to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a haven for criminals, but critics fear that Beijing will use it to detain political opponents and silence its many detractors in the enclave.
On June 12, protests around the legislature turned violent, forcing the body, which is dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers, to shelve a debate on the bill. More than 80 were injured in clashes with police, who used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the streets.
Lam then announced that the legislation would be postponed, but this did not pacify Hongkongers, who turned out in even greater numbers on June 16 to call for the bill’s complete withdrawal and Lam’s ouster. The march, which organizers claim was two million strong, saw the young and the elderly, political activists and business figures, religious groups and families, take to the streets in an unprecedented show of unity.
The marches forced a public apology from Lam for the extradition debacle, but it was criticized for being belated and insufficient. Protesters are now expected to step up their actions in the run up to the July 1 anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese sovereignty. One woman told TIME Friday that protesters needed to be “less passive and reliant on waiting for the government’s move.”
Speaking earlier in an exclusive interview with TIME, Wong said the battle was far from over. “The Hong Kong government and Beijing have turned a whole generation of students from citizens to dissidents,” he said. “I think President Xi might be really angry at how Carrie Lam generated more than a million dissidents that live in and love this place.”
—With reporting by Laignee Barron and Aria Hangyu Chen / Hong Kong