Defiant Hong Kong leader vows to push ahead with China extradition law

Clashes: police officers confronting protesters at the central government complex
Getty Images

Hong Kong's leader has defied mass protests and vowed to press ahead with a controversial law allowing suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

Carrie Lam said she would not scrap the plan, which critics fear will allow Beijing to target political opponents in the semi-autonomous former British colony. The chief executive declared her commitment to the bill as a ring of steel was thrown around Hong Kong’s parliament following a night of rioting.

Violence flared after Hong Kong’s biggest protest since its handover to Chinese rule in 1997. Organisers claimed that more than a million people took part in yesterday’s demonstration, although police put the figure at 240,000.

Flanked by security and justice chiefs, Ms Lam denied claims that she had been instructed by Beijing to introduce the law. “We were doing it — and we are still doing it — out of our clear conscience, and our commitment to Hong Kong... While we will continue to do the communication and explanation, there is very little merit to be gained to delay the bill. It will just cause more anxiety and divisiveness in society,” she said.

The extradition bill amendments would allow Hong Kong to send suspects to mainland China to face charges, sparking fears that defendants would not have the same rights as in Hong Kong. Opponents said the proposed legislation could make Hong Kong residents vulnerable to vague national security charges and unfair trials. But Ms Lam said the bill aimed to prevent it becoming a haven for fugitives and would allow extradition requests from authorities in mainland China, Taiwan and Macau.

Ring of steel: a demonstrator being dragged away outside the parliament
AP

Meanwhile Beijing today blamed “foreign forces” for the protests which have plunged Hong Kong into a political crisis. At least three police officers and a journalist were injured in clashes as police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse crowds.

Today, riot police ringed Hong Kong’s legislature and fought back a hardcore group of several hundred protesters. The extradition proposals came after a 19-year-old Hong Kong man allegedly murdered his 20-year-old pregnant girlfriend while they were on holiday in Taiwan. The suspect fled to Hong Kong and could not be extradited to Taiwan because there was no treaty.

Hong Kong was guaranteed the right to retain its own social, legal and political systems for 50 years under an agreement reached before its 1997 return to China from British rule.

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