Straight Talk

Chief Executive Carrie Lam says Hong Kong government will formally withdraw extradition bill

by Charlie Smith on September 4th, 2019 at 6:55 AM
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      The widely despised chief executive of Hong Kong has issued a lengthy response to the five demands by protesters.

      After 13 consecutive weekends of demonstrations, including growing violence, Carrie Lam has said in a speech that the government will formally withdraw a controversial extradition bill "to fully allay public concerns".

      She had previously said that the bill was dead, but it remained on the order paper. If passed, it would have allowed residents of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan charged with serious offences to be tried in mainland China.

      Lam has not given in to the other four demands:

      * retraction of the description of the protests as "riots";

      * release and exoneration of people arrested;

      * an independent commission into Hong Kong police conduct;

      * Lam's resignation and the introduction of universal suffrage.

      She acknowledged that universal suffrage "is the ultimate aim laid down in the Basic Law" when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 under a "one country–two systems" approach lasting 50 years.

      "As we said before, if we are to achieve this, discussions must be undertaken within the legal framework and in an atmosphere that is conducive to mutual trust and understanding, and without further polarizing society," Lam said.

      She claimed that dropping charges against protesters and shelving prosecutions would be contrary to the rule of law and is therefore unacceptable.

      "It also goes against the Basic Law, which states that criminal prosecutions must be handled by the Department of Justice, free from any interference," she added.

      Lam also said that the government will not set up a commission of inquiry into police conduct. Rather, she claimed that this is best handled by the existing Independent Police Complaints Council.

      "In addition to handling complaints against individual police officers, the IPCC has undertaken a fact-finding study, under its powers, on the handling of large-scale public order events that took place after June 9," she stated. "One focus will be the Yuen Long incident on July 21 which attracted serious public concern."

      The chair of the youth-created political party Demosistō has dismissed Lam's response as being too little, too late.

      Joshua Wong stated that any palm branch that's extended is always followed up with a "far tighter grip on civil rights".

      "They have conceded nothing in fact, and a full-scale clampdown is on the way," he predicted over Twitter.

      Wong's party wants a referendum on sovereignty.

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