Massive Crowds
Take To Streets in ‘Last Fight’ For Hong Kong
Protesters throng city, rallying against a law that would
allow Beijing to extradite people into mainland China to stand trial
Protesters
crowd Hong Kong’s Victoria park, the starting point of a march that snaked for
more than a mile and a half through the global financial hub, to the
legislature. PHOTO:JOYU WANG/THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL
By
Natasha Khan
June 9, 2019 6:25 a.m. ET
HONG KONG—Huge crowds of demonstrators took to the streets
Sunday to protest a
proposed law that would allow Beijing to take people from Hong
Kong to stand trial in mainland China.
Organizers
expect hundreds of thousands of people to join the march in what would be the
biggest turnout since 2003, when half a million people demonstrated against
national security legislation that was later withdrawn by the government.
Protest
signs in multiple languages decried the proposed law that would allow Beijing
to take people into mainland China to stand trial. PHOTO:CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AGENCE
FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The
mass turnout, with crowds filling public parks and thronging roads up to six
lanes wide for more than a mile and a half, heaps pressure on the city’s
leaders and their political masters in Beijing to shelve the law. Unlike 2003,
however, China’s ruling Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has in
recent years taken a much stronger line against dissent in the former British
colony.
“This
is the last fight for Hong Kong,” said Martin Lee, a veteran opposition leader
who founded the city’s Democratic Party. “The proposal is the most dangerous
threat to our freedoms and way of life since the handover” of sovereignty, he
said.
The proposed law, which would allow suspects
to be extradited to mainland China for trial, has sparked anger in
an unusually wide swath of the population, from teachers to lawyers and
business leaders. The uniting fear is that the law, if passed, would expose
citizens to the mainland’s more opaque legal system, where detainees could be
subject to torture and other abuses of human rights.
Foreign
business groups and diplomats have warned the proposal poses a threat to the
rule of law that has helped Hong Kong prosper for decades as an international
financial center, and which was guaranteed by China when it resumed sovereignty
over the city from Britain in 1997. Opposition has grown even after the city’s
leader, Carrie Lam watered down the bill slightly by removing offense
categories liable to extradition from 46 to 37.
Police
detain a demonstrator during the protest against Hong Kong’s controversial
extradition bill. PHOTO: THOMAS
PETER/REUTERS
Ms.
Lam’s government has said fears about the law are unfounded and stressed that
only those suspected of the most serious crimes would be subject to
extradition. The government says there will be safeguards against abuse and
that the law won’t damage the city’s business environment or relate to offenses
of a political nature. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a
request for comment on the protests and their potential impact on the proposed
extradition law. Phone and fax lines to China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs
Office, which oversees Beijing’s policies to those territories, rang unanswered
Sunday.
We need to defend our home for the next generation
—Kitty
Wong, protester
Ms. Lam bypassed a lawmakers’ review committee to push the
bill through for a second reading in the city’s legislature on June 12. The
government has enough votes to pass the law within a few weeks, having used
legal action to oust several
democratically elected opposition legislators from office over
the past two years.
Anger over the extradition has revived an opposition
movement that had dwindled after street protests
in 2014 paralyzed parts of the city for 79 days, but ended
without achieving their goal of obtaining more democracy. Beijing’s influence
over the city has grown since, while room for dissent has shrunk as the
government has jailed
protesters, declaring a
pro-independence political party illegal and expelling a
foreign journalist.
Families
and church groups joined opposition activists, many dressed in white and
holding red placards denouncing the law, as police were forced to close more
roads and traffic lanes to enable the snaking mass of humanity to move.
Crowds
were so massive that some train stations across the city were temporarily
closed and protesters had to line up in sweltering heat to enter a local park,
chanting slogans to oppose the law and cheering each other on taking to the
streets to express their discontent.
The
march stretched for more than a mile and a half through the heart of Hong Kong. PHOTO: TYRONE SIU/REUTERS
“I
needed to let my voice be heard,” said Kitty Wong, a 38-year-old teacher who
joined a protest for the first time. Gesturing to her two children, ages 8 and
9, she said: “We need to defend our home for the next generation.”
Veteran activist Mr.
Lee was on drafting committee of the Basic Law, the city’s mini constitution
that enshrined people’s freedoms and rights until 2047. He said there was
deliberately no extradition clause in the agreement because the two
jurisdictions were too different. Beijing could extradite Hong Kong residents
and foreigners on trumped-up charges, he said.
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