Remembering June 12th, 2019
- 4reehongkong
- Jun 12, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 2, 2020
June 12th 2020, marks the first year anniversary of June 12th anti-extradition protests-the altercations that sparked the rise of the freedom movement.
Demonstrators clashing with riot police officers (Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times)
On June 12th an intense confrontation between anti-extradition bill protesters and the Hong Kong Police occurred outside the Government Headquarters in Admiralty, Hong Kong Island.
The protests had already been occurring since the beginning of March in 2019, but were heightened on this day due to the government's introduction of the controversial amendments to the Fugitive Offenders bill. If put in place, the bill would allow for the Hong Kong government to extradite wanted criminal fugitives to areas in Taiwan and mainland China. The concern for this bill rested on the fact that it would subject Hong Kong residents and visitors to the jurisdiction of China-which functions under autocracy with no independent judicial system- and would therefore further curtail the region's civil liberties and autonomy. This would mean that Hong Kong courts would have no investigative powers and could only rely on ‘superficial evidence’ provided by the Chinese government for review. In other words, Chinese officials could fabricate evidence leaving the suspect with little ability to defend his/her innocence. (source 1).
Demonstrators set up barriers outside the Legislative Council (Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times)
Protesters occupy a main road and walkways. (Paul Yeung for Bloomberg)
Riot police officers outside the Legislative Council. (Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times)
The second reading of the bill was effectively stalled by the 40,000 protesters that gathered outside the Government Headquarters. During the protests, the police deployed numerous canisters of tear gas, rubber bullets and bean bag rounds in an attempt to make the protesters disperse(source 2). Afterwards, the police faced heavy criticism for their excessive use of force and arrests of protesters, especially in the case of the protesters who were inside the CITIC Tower.
Protesters are hit with tear gas. (Phillip Fong, Getty Images)
Protesters injured from the tear gas (NY times)
Protesters attempt to take shelter from tear gas. (Sanjit Das for Bloomberg)
The conflict proved to be one of the most intense altercations between the police and the protesters during the early stage of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. After 6/12, protesters created and put forth five core demands which are as follows: first the withdrawal of the bill, an investigation into alleged police misconduct, the release of all the arrested, a retraction of the official label of the protests as “riots”, and the resignation of Carrie Lam as Chief Executive, and most importantly, the introduction of universal suffrage(source 3).
"Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, publicly apologized on June 18 for having proposed the extradition measure, but she did not withdraw the bill." (NY times)
Protesters in distress over the implications of the proposed extradition bill (NY times)
Sources:
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