Hong Kong protests escalate with storming of legislative building

Protesters in Hong Kong forced their way into the legislature, taking over the building on the 22nd anniversary of the city-state’s handover from Britain to China.

Demonstrators wearing hard hats tore apart the outside of the Legislative Council, ripping down metal and shattering glass to get inside the building. A handful of protesters used a shopping cart as battering ram and others used metal poles and umbrellas to pry open the main entrance. At about 9 pm local time, they broke through and flooded inside.

The protests unfolded on the 22nd anniversary of the date in 1997 when the British handed the colony back to Beijing. As part of that transition, China agreed that Hong Kong would partly govern itself for the next 50 years under the “one country, two systems” doctrine, until formally being absorbed under China’s rule in 2047.

But Beijing has tried to consolidate its control over Hong Kong in recent years, which the protesters see as undermining the city-state’s democratic government and freedom of expression.

Last month, Hong Kong’s government was set to pass a controversial extradition law that would have permitted authorities to arrest people and send them to face trial in other countries that lacked extradition treaties with the territory — including mainland China.

That proposed law set off a wave of demonstrations, drawing hundreds of thousands to the streets. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, promised to suspend the legislation indefinitely, but has not committed to fully withdrawing the bill.

These July 1 protests happen annually, organized by activists who want to preserve Hong Kong’s status, but the extradition bill has amplified the message.

The storming of the legislature also shows just how high tensions are in Hong Kong — although those who bombarded the government building are just a relatively small splinter group. Tens of thousands of others marched peacefully on the anniversary and against the extradition bill. Their presence overshadowed the pro-Beijing ceremony commemorating the handover, which authorities decided to move inside citing “inclement weather.”

The occupation of the legislative building is likely a turning point in what have been relatively peaceful — and powerful — demonstrations. On June 12, protesters and police clashed as they swarmed the legislative building, ultimately derailing the debate over the extradition bill.

But on Monday, they destroyed parts of the building, defaced signs and portraits, and graffitied the walls with black spray paint. They unfurled a banner that roughly translated to “there are no rioters, only a tyranny.” This is in reference to the June 12 protests, where police characterized the demonstrations a riot and charged some protesters with rioting, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

“Many people are ready for the legal repercussions,” a protester told the South China Morning Post. ”They are angry and they feel helpless.”

According to media reports, the police largely held back as the protesters breached the legislature, leading some to speculate that law enforcement did so deliberately to make the protesters and their movement less sympathetic.

The Legislative Council was put on red alert for the first time ever, according to the BBC, prompting an evacuation of the building and surrounding area. Government headquarters will also be closed Tuesday.

But later, Hong Kong police warned that they would sweep the building and use “reasonable force.” They referred to it as a “violent attack.”

The majority of the protesters appeared to heed that warning, abandoning the legislative building and the possibility of a confrontation inside. But a few dozen continued to occupy the chambers saying that they refused to leave, and others remain outside, in the vicinity of the complex near a makeshift barricade.

Police arrived around midnight local time, clearing the legislature, though most of the protesters had left, according to the South China Morning Post. Police fired tear gas toward the protesters outside to try to clear the streets.

Some pro-democracy lawmakers lamented the storming of the legislature, saying it would undermine the protesters’ goals. “You see the anger, the desperation these young people are experiencing,” Fernando Cheung, vice chair of the Labour Party and a member of the Legislative Council, told reporters. “That’s why they want to take anything they think is radical enough, escalating enough to make the government respond.”

He called it “unfortunate,” saying it was “exactly what the government wants.”

Later, democratic legislators and the Civil Human Rights Front, the group that organized the peaceful July 1 march, released a statement that said Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, had refused to meet with protesters or respond to demands.

They accused her of pushing “youngsters toward desperation” and for turning down requests for dialogue among pro-democracy lawmakers and groups to find a solution to the impasse over the extradition bill.

Though the anger and frustration among many Hongkongers is undeniable, Lam has so far maintained her stance against fully scrapping the extradition bill — and it seems unlikely that these chaotic scenes in the legislature will persuade her to change course.

The protests in Hong Kong over the past few weeks have brought millions of people to the streets to push back against this extradition bill that critics see as a direct threat to the territory’s democracy and another example of Beijing’s encroachment.

“In recent years, the Hong Kong government has disqualified elected lawmakers, banned activists from running for office, prohibited a political party, jailed pro-democracy leaders, expelled a senior foreign journalist, and looked the other way when Beijing kidnapped its adversaries in Hong Kong,” Ben Bland, a Hong Kong expert at the Lowy Institute in Australia, told Vox’s Alex Ward last month.

Demonstrators see this extradition bill as another example of that. Hong Kong doesn’t have a formal extradition treaty with mainland China, but this legislation would allow Hong Kong’s chief executive (the city-state’s governor, basically) to transfer arrestees on a case-by-case basis to face trial in China — and it would apply retroactively.

Critics fear this will let Beijing arbitrarily target anyone it deems a threat, and that there will be few checks on the chief executive’s power, as she was handpicked by the government in Beijing.

Lam previously defended the extradition bill, saying it’s intended to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a safe haven for fugitives.

Lam has suspended the bill. But critics want her to withdraw the legislation completely and remove the threat that lawmakers could quickly try to take it up again once the demonstrations and public opposition subside.

Which is why the protest movement has continued — including a pitch to world leaders at the G20. But the frustration among some protesters at seeing their demands unmet spilled over into unrest on Monday.