The Road of Democracy- Anti-Extradition Law in Hong Kong

‘It’s my first time going on a protest.’ says a 21-year-old university student in Hong Kong. Neva used to be a political indifferent person. Many HongKongers started their first protest experience by the time the famous Umbrella Movement took place in 2014, while she still remained silent for the time. However, the government has forced her to stand out, and become part of the 2 million protesters on 16 June 2019. One worth-mentioning point is that there is only a population of less than 8 million in Hong Kong.

What Actually Trigger the HongKongers

When the HKSAR government has officially announced the plan to amend the extradition law which governs the fugitive transfer process and legal assistance between Hong Kong and jurisdictions, HongKongers are fear that it is in fact a trap for ‘political crimes’ for the Beijing central government. With numerous cases regarding politics of China, it is known that the standard of prosecution is highly subjective.  Even for an ordinary citizen who has never committed any crimes, s/he can be extradited at any time and for any reason.

As the second and third reading of the bill was scheduled on 12 June, 1.03 million citizens attended the march that confronted the Extradition Law on 9 June. Regrettably, the harmonious march has turned into a violent conflict between protesters and the police – After the government announced that the bill will still continue its readings, despite the opposition from 1/7 of the local population. On June 12, the police fired 150 teargas rounds, 20 beanbag shots, several rubber bullets and smoke bombs on protesters outside the Legislative Council complex. What shocked the public is that the police violently attacked the young protesters who have clearly shown that they had no intention to fight against – they just wanted to retrieve to a safe place. In addition, there were cameras capturing the scenes that the police even attacked the press. This is a serious challenge to press freedom and it reflects the problem of abused power of the police. On June 15, a protest suicide case took place. This has broken the citizens’ hearts.

The series of events have stirred up HongKongers and 2 million have come out on 16 June ‘It’s like even after such a huge protest happened, the government could still turn a blind eye to it…Together with the unreasonably brutal acts of the police, I feel like it is my obligation to come out and to fight for Hong Kong this time. It’s now or never.’ Neva said, ‘What makes me lament is that I am the old one there in the protest… as a 21-year-old.’ Many protesters were only secondary school students and she could see that some were revising while protesting as it is the final examination period in Hong Kong.

How did the Government react

Several press conferences were held by the HKSAR government and the police, while they could not address any one of the concerns of the angry citizens. They categorized the protests as riots and criticized the protesters as irritating. They quoted the examples of setting up fire but not a single correspondent could indeed capture it. On 18 June, the Chief Executive Carrie Lam apologized. Yet, citizens found it insincere, as in the reading of the bill is only suspended, but not withdrawn; and the problem of the abusing power of police is still unaddressed.

The Future…?

After the announcement of suspension of the reading, journalists have found that other controversial bills are waiting to be read in the following days, including the Lantau Tomorrow Vision, which is to create a third core business district by constructing artificial islands with a total area of about 1,700 hectares through massive land reclamation near Lantau Island.

It is clear that it is impossible for HongKongers to come out for protests every week, to prevent the undesirable bills to be passed. Then, what could be the next step? No one could tell. The future of Hong Kong might seem gloomy, with the approaching deadline of ‘50 years unchanged system in Hong Kong’; but many citizens still hold hope towards Hong Kong- ‘The one thing that we can do and we know it will be effective is to vote the pro-Beijing camp out of the LegCo, and to elect those who are actually serving the people in Hong Kong, but not the Communist Party.’

It’s still Hong Kong, not China, not yet.

The road of democracy is never easy. South Korea took 50 years to have her democratic president elected, while numerous attempts, protests and occupations were done to attain the result. How would the future of Hong Kong be? We never know but perseverance might be the key.