Hong Kong: Combative protesters managed to smash their way into the Hong Kong legislature building on Monday night, seizing the seat of Beijing’s power over the city, as tens of thousands marched separately on the 22nd anniversary of the former British colony’s return to China.
A relatively small group of people rammed metal objects into the windows on the ground floor of the legislature building for hours, eventually breaking through two security perimeters and taking over the building.
The demonstrators, mostly young people, earlier erected barricades at building exits where they thought police would come out. They propped doors and gates to the building open with any metal objects they could find, and used umbrellas to try to block the view of police inside the building.
As the protesters took over the building, spray painting anti-China slogans on the walls and raising Hong Kong’s colonial era flag, Beijing announced that the Hong Kong government would be closed on Tuesday, “owing to security consideration.”
Protesters break into the Legislative Council building during the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China in Hong Kong
Police earlier shot pepper spray through a hole in the door of the building made by the protesters, which drove them back for a while. But hours later angry demonstrators swarmed into the legislature after prying open metal security curtains. Police appeared to back off as the protesters came in, apparently to avoid a confrontation.
The media report said that both the combative protesters and the much larger group marching through Hong Kong’s streets — said by organizers to be about 550,000-strong — were venting anger at the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, and by extension her superiors in Beijing. Lam backed controversial changes to Hong Kong’s extradition law that would let China transfer anyone accused of a crime in Hong Kong into the mainland’s opaque court system.
The proposed changes to the law have increased fears of eroding freedoms in the territory that was returned to China in 1997 — and sparked the biggest protests the city has ever seen.
Anti-extradition protesters use makeshift shields to defend themselves during a clash with police outside the Legislative Council Complex ahead of the annual flag raising ceremony of 22nd anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain to China on July 1, 2019 in Hong Kong, China.
The disruption at the legislature building stalled the start of the pre-planned protest march. The crowd started filing out of Hong Kong’s central Victoria Park, but changed the end point of their march because of the ongoing protest by the smaller group at the legislative building.
The Civil Human Rights Front said the march would go to an area nearby instead of directly to the legislature. Police asked the organizers to stop the march at an earlier point, but the organizers refused.
The government has suspended debate on the bill indefinitely, but protest leaders want it formally withdrawn and for city leader Carrie Lam to resign. They also are demanding an independent inquiry into police actions during a June 12 protest, when officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters who blocked the legislature on the day debate on the bill had been scheduled to resume.
The police say the use of force was justified, but have since adopted softer tactics, even as protesters besieged police headquarters in recent days, pelting it with eggs and spray-painting slogans on its outer walls.
Earlier, protesters demanding Hong Kong’s embattled leader step down clashed with police outside a flag-raising ceremony marking the anniversary of the former British colony’s return to China. Lam pledged to be more responsive to public sentiment suspended debate on the bill
At the ceremony, Lam said a series of protests and marches that have attracted hundreds of thousands of students and other participants in recent weeks had taught her that she needs to listen better to the youth, and Hong Kong’s people in general. Lam has come under withering criticism for trying to push through the legislation.
