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Crowds mourn the unknown activist, praising his passion and sense of justice
Many among the vast crowds that marched through Hong Kong on Sunday carried white flowers tributes to an anonymous man who had fallen to his death the previous evening after unfurling a large protest banner on scaffolding near government headquarters.
No one knew the man’s name, or why he was there, even though protesters and an opposition politician spent hours trying to persuade him to come down with hymns and exhortations.
Authorities urged to withdraw extradition bill as Carrie Lam apology fails to calm ire
A wave of protesters hundreds of thousands strong, most dressed in black and many carrying white flowers of mourning, have swept through central Hong Kong to denounce a controversial extradition law and demand the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, steps down.
They poured in from all over the city, in numbers so large that the march route had to be extended, and then widened, with crowds spilling from the main road to fill neighbouring streets, and halting all traffic outside government headquarters.
Protesters dressed in black have marched through central Hong Kong demanding a full retraction of the China extradition law. The huge new rally comes after Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, announced an indefinite halt to the proposed bill, which would allow residents and visitors to be sent for trial in China’s opaque Communist-controlled court system
Chief executive adopts unapologetic, defensive tone and refuses to resign
Carrie Lam’s announcement that a controversial extradition bill had been suspended reinforced the Hong Kong chief executive’s reputation as a hard-nosed leader who can “put up a good fight”.
Throughout her press conference on Saturday, Lam adopted a resolute, unapologetic and defensive tone that her critics labelled arrogant and insincere.
Efforts to pass a controversial law in Hong Kong which would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial have been indefinitely suspended, Carrie Lam announced on Saturday. The move followed a week of mass protests and street violence over the bill
Carrie Lam says legislation that would allow suspects to be sent to mainland China ‘caused a lot of division’
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has been forced into a humiliating concession after a week of mass protests, promising to indefinitely suspend efforts to pass a controversial new extradition law ahead of another demonstration that has been called for Sunday.
Lam’s announcement represented perhaps the most serious government climbdown in the face of public pressure since a security law was dropped in 2003, an important democratic moment for a city where people are free to demonstrate but not able to choose their leaders.
But for policies to be effective we must keep in mind how US actions affect the debate within China, where there is vigorous struggle over the country’s future
As the United States engages in an increasingly heated debate over policy towards China – the fight against Huawei, the trade war, talk of a new cold war – the protests in Hong Kong serve as a reminder that there are people in China who are concerned about the same things we are – basic rights, jobs, families.
In Hong Kong this week hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets to protest a proposed law that would enable the government to extradite Hong Kong citizens to the mainland – legislation perceived as legal cover for the Chinese Communist party (CCP) to jail those in Hong Kong advocating for their democratic rights.
China’s power grab via a new extradition bill must be opposed by governments around the world, especially Britain’s
It took something out of the ordinary to provoke a million people in Hong Kong to take to the streets to demonstrate against proposed new extradition rules. Roughly one-sixth of the population demonstrated peacefully: families, young and old, lawyers, academics, students, professionals and manual workers.
What caused such an outpouring against a piece of legislation? Quite simply, the people of Hong Kong – not British, but Hong Kong Chinese – have seen their government connive with the Communist regime in Beijing to undermine their way of life and freedoms.
Pro-Beijing politician also urges pause and diplomat distances China from law
The pressure of Hong Kong public opinion against a proposed extradition law appears to be causing cracks in the unity of pro-Beijing leaders after two senior figures called for the legislation to be delayed or dropped.
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has staked her authority on pushing through the legislation, vowing not to back down during a week in which protests have convulsed the city. She has compared demonstrators who were pelted with rubber bullets and teargas to spoilt children.
Demonstrations against the extradition bill follow a 50-year tradition of publicly challenging authority
In Hong Kong, people have most of the freedoms of a democracy except the right to choose their leaders. The city’s last British governor, Chris Patten, described it as a place that enjoyed “liberty without democracy”.
That has made protests particularly important as a political tool and an expression of Hong Kong identity. For more than half a century, the people of Hong Kong have been taking to the streets to force distant authorities – first in Britain and later in Beijing – to reconsider how they govern the city.
The extradition bill would bulldoze our legal system and hurt our economy. I’ve lost faith in China’s promise of democracy
The ninth of June 2019 was a Sunday. Any other Sunday in summer at Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, old men and women would do their usual walkabouts and maids would gather, spread out groundsheets, cover them with spicy delicacies and listen to Filipino pop songs. But it was not like any other Sunday, at least not for me. Filled with anxiety, hope and anger, I joined the protest against Hong Kong’s proposed extradition law, alongside three classmates from my evening Spanish class. We were hopeful because perhaps there was a slim chance that our government would listen to us, for once. We were angry because our government had repeatedly lied to us.
Activists in Hong Kong have called for a march on Sunday and a boycott of work and classes on Monday in protest against an extradition bill that could result in suspects being sent to mainland China.
On Thursday, a day after a demonstration by thousands of people was violently cleared, a group of pro-democracy politicians and activists tried to march on the residence of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, but were stopped by police.
The demonstrators are less idealistic than in 2014, and the police respond more forcefully
At the end of pro-democracy protests that paralysed central Hong Kong for 79 days in 2014, demonstrators left behind glitter bombs and stickers with the outline of an umbrella and the message: “We’ll be back.”
More than four years later, they have made good on that promise. Since Tuesday evening, thousands of protesters have poured into the streets, surrounding their government. They blocked roads, built barricades, and occupied many of the same areas that were under siege during the Occupy protests, also known as the “umbrella movement”, a campaign for “genuine democracy” in elections. Like in 2014, they have clashed with riot police and suffered rounds of teargas.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the protests in Hong Kong, where tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered as politicians debate controversial extradition legislation.
Early on Wednesday, major roads were blocked by masses of protesters, who began systematically barricades set up by police near the legislative council building and chanting “retract, retract!” Demonstrators are protesting laws that critics fear would let China spirit its critics across the border.
Major roads blocked and citywide shutdown expected on Wednesday as hundreds of businesses call for a boycott
Tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Hong Kong, blocking major roads and sporadically clashing with police as politicians prepared to debate extradition legislation that critics fear would let China spirit its critics across the border.
Protesters gathered around the legislative council building, dismantling and pushing down barricades set up by police and chanting “retract, retract!” Large numbers of riot police have been deployed, using pepper spray on protesters and holding up signs warning they were prepared to use force on the crowds.
A series of mass protests has shaken the city. We look at the motivations behind them
Hong Kong has been rocked by a series of protests by hundreds of thousands of people in recent weeks, many of which have ended in violent clashes between police and pockets of demonstrators.
The protests were initially focused on a bill that that would make it easier to extradite people to China from the semi-autonomous city. But the authorities’ harsh policing of the protests, coupled with a refusal by Hong Kong’s leader to completely withdraw the bill, mean protesters have returned to the streets time and again.
The huge march, which stretched for more than two miles, was peaceful until midnight, when police and demonstrators clashed after attempts to disperse some remaining protesters from the area outside the legislative offices.
An estimated 1 million people took to the streets of Hong Kong to demonstrate against the controversial extradition bill, with multiple other demonstrations occurring globally in support, including in Tokyo, Vancouver and Los Angeles