A small group of protesters yesterday paraded around the Hong Kong government headquarters with a mock coffin of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) as activists announced more protests.
The march marked the one-month anniversary of the start of major protests that have rocked the semi-autonomous territory, sparked by Lam’s proposal to change extradition laws to allow suspects to be sent to China to face trial.
Last month, Lam suspended the bill indefinitely. On Tuesday, she declared the legislation “dead,” but protesters want her government to formally withdraw it and quit, among other demands.
Photo: Reuters
Pro-democracy activist Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄) accused Lam of being arrogant, saying that she has shown no remorse and refused to say that introducing the legislation was a mistake.
“If you want Hong Kong to move forward, accept reality ... step down,” he said.
The two dozen marchers were mostly older veteran protesters like Leung, in contrast to the students and other young people who have been at the center of the past month’s demonstrations.
They marched to a police barricade at a protest site and bowed their heads for a moment of silence to mourn several young people who have died in the past few weeks, including a man who fell to his death after unfurling banners against the legislation — whose parents have urged young people to continue their struggle.
Hundreds of thousands of people have joined the weeks-long protests that showed no signs of ending amid wider fears that Hong Kong is losing freedoms guaranteed when China took control of the former British colony in 1997.
Critics fear suspects could face unfair and politicized trials in China, and that critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party could be targeted.
On Monday last week, the 22nd anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain back to China, a peaceful march drew hundreds of thousands of people.
However, it was overshadowed by an assault on the Hong Kong Legislative Council building, where a few hundred demonstrators ransacked the building, spray-painting slogans on walls, overturning furniture and damaging electronic voting and fire prevention systems.
Tens of thousands of people joined the most recent mass rally on Sunday, seeking attention from Chinese in the mainland, where public dissent is banned and state-run media have not covered the protests widely.
More rallies are planned this weekend at two shopping districts near China’s border that are popular with Chinese visitors.
The Civil Human Rights Front, a key organizer of recent demonstrations, announced plans for another major rally on July 21.
Jimmy Sham (岑子傑), one of the group’s leaders, said that the rally would highlight demands for an independent inquiry into alleged police brutality against demonstrators.
The activists also want the government to drop its descriptions of the protests as “riots,” to release those arrested and to move toward universal suffrage.
“Carrie Lam has lied to us again and again. We want to ask Carrie Lam, when are you going to speak the truth?” Sham said.
Beijing-appointed Lam, who was not directly elected, and her government have not acted in the people’s interest, he added.
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