'Police are telling us lies': Hong Kong protests no longer about extradition bill
Hong Kong: Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam’s offer to withdraw the bill that sparked the city’s protest movement is unlikely to end it, as fear and anger toward police become a central driver of the street marches.
“The police are the main problem Hong Kong people would like to solve these days - the way they deal with the protesters,” said small business owner Jonathan on Wednesday night, after watching Lam’s television announcement.
Withdrawing the extradition bill - after three months of refusing to offer any concessions as 2 million people marched in the streets, and then protests grew violent - is a significant climb down for authoritarian Beijing, which would have had to approve the move.
Jonathan opened his Around Wellington cafe in Central on June 6, three days before the first mass rally against the extradition bill by a million people. Hong Kong’s economy has plummeted ever since and restaurants and hotels have been particularly hit as tourists stay away.
The cafe has a Lennon Wall of protest Post-it notes in the front window, which has attracted a young clientele. Jonathan says since mid-June, when police first used tear gas and rubber bullets against a large crowd, the protesters have said they had five demands.
The protesters' five demands
- Withdraw the Extradition Bill (which has occurred).
- Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam must step down.
- A probe into police brutality.
- The release of protesters who have been detained.
- Give Hong Kong citizens the direct vote in choosing their leaders.
“The police have more power than Carrie Lam these days. An independent investigation into the police is the first priority - but Lam says she won’t allow it. Police say they use appropriate force, but people can see the real situation from live broadcasts. The police are telling us lies,” he said.
His business partner, Vince, expresses fears apparently widespread among young Hong Kongers, fuelled by online rumours, the arrests of thousands of protesters, and images on live television of people hit with batons.
“People disappear,” said Vince. “I don’t know whether the police send patients to hospitals or other places.”
Tanya Chan, a Legislative Council member for the Civic Party, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age she is receiving increasing complaints from the public about abuse of protesters in detention.
She believes if an independent inquiry into police was established with wide powers, it could have an immediate impact on police action on the street because officers would know they faced potential sanctions if they broke rules.
“The independent commission of inquiry is one of the most important and crucial points that could be answered by Carrie Lam... Especially when we see every day at 4pm the police are telling lies in front of the cameras.”
A daily police press conference on Wednesday described radical protesters as “a disease spreading across the city and poisoning the minds of young people”.
On the same day, local media reported a school student tackled to the floor in a playground by police on Tuesday had lost two front teeth and required seven stitches. After a video of the incident went viral, a police spokesman said at the daily press conference the police officer had slipped over.
“Excessive force is being used on arrested persons as well as ordinary citizens. I don’t think they are going to stop,” says Chan.
“The commission of inquiry is the only thing that can soothe the situation, because there is strong tension not only between protesters and police, but ordinary citizens and police.”
Chan said withdrawing the extradition bill was “too little, too late” and she doesn’t think Lam can solve the rift in society.
“I am concerned she is laying the ground for further action, for example, emergency laws and is trying to justify the situation,” she said.
The protest movement needs to be “very careful”.
Chan was convicted of public nuisance in April, and received a suspended jail sentence, after belated prosecutions by the government against nine leaders of the 2014 Occupy democracy protests that had called for universal suffrage.
Beijing continues to condemn Hong Kong’s democratic politicians - who are elected by popular vote.
Pro-Beijing politician Starry Lee of the DAB party supported Lam’s plan to start a dialogue about restoring calm to the city, and said “the average citizen wants the controversy around the extradition bill to end, stop the violent clashes, and for Hong Kong to get out of these difficult circumstances”.
Another pro Beijing politician Regina Ip said she backed the withdrawal but expected protests to continue.
In mainland China, Lam’s announcement the extradition bill would be withdrawn was met with criticism on social media - before comments were scrubbed by government censors.
A wave of mainland Chinese propaganda has recently attacked Hong Kong protesters as “terrorists” driven by “black hands”.
Beijing’s office on Hong Kong affairs on Tuesday said it differentiated between radical protest leaders and lawful protesters who were peaceful. This may have been preparing the ground among the Chinese public for offering one concession to the protesters.
The Hong Kong protesters say they are leaderless. A press conference on Wednesday evening outside the Legislative Council by two masked protesters who said they represented the views of many others online, said Lam’s offer to withdraw the extradition bill was “applying a band aid months later on rotten flesh - it will not cut it”.
Unless police de-escalated the frontline protesters would not de-escalate, a masked woman said.
A larger group of unmasked citizens - many dressed in smart office clothes and dresses - stood back behind the scrutiny of the television cameras and chanted loudly “Fight for Freedom”.