China stays mum as Hong Kong protests extradition bill
BEIJING, China — Chinese state media remained largely silent as an estimated two million Hong Kong people took to the streets Sunday to protest an extradition bill, with social platforms scrubbed clean of any pictures or mentions of the rally.
Hong Kong's government has been rocked in recent days by massive demonstrations -- and some violence -- which forced the city's embattled Chief Executive Carrie Lam to indefinitely suspend passage of the bill.
Early Monday, China's official Xinhua news agency issued a four-paragraph report noting suspension of the measure, "having regard to the strong and different views in society".
Xinhua said Lam had apologized to the people and pledged to make improvements in serving them after "deficiencies" in the Hong Kong government's work "led to substantial controversies and disputes in society."
The report made no mention of Sunday's protest in which crowds choked the streets of the financial hub, calling for Lam's resignation.
Critics fear the Beijing-backed law will entangle people in China's notoriously opaque and politicised courts and damage the city's reputation as a safe place for business.
Except for a short opinion piece in the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily, Chinese state media -- which has drummed up support for the bill in recent weeks -- remained mum Sunday after Lam's climbdown.
China's state broadcaster, CCTV, avoided the subject in its main news bulletins throughout the day.
The proposed law that would allow extraditions to the mainland was "supported by mainstream public opinion in Hong Kong", the People's Daily article said.
Opposing 'intervention of external forces'
"The general public is looking forward to blocking legal loopholes to prevent Hong Kong becoming a haven for sinners," it added.
China has blamed the protests on what it says is a small group of organisers who are colluding with Western governments.
The People's Daily echoed the oft-repeated government line that "it resolutely opposes the intervention of external forces in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs".
It also supported the option chosen by pro-Beijing Lam to put the bill on the backburner, saying it was an opportunity to "further listen to opinions".
Searches on China's Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo for "Hong Kong protests" only yielded official Chinese foreign ministry statements. The ministry has called such rallies "riots" or "behaviour that undermines Hong Kong's peace and stability".
There were no photos of black-clad protesters walking with banners critical of the bill, or people leaving flowers at the site where a young man fell to his death protesting the law.
Videos of police using pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters -- which had left Hong Kong public seething -- were also absent from Chinese social media.
Websites such as Twitter and Facebook -- accessible in semi-autonomous Hong Kong -- are blocked on the mainland.
Beijing was already on edge this month as it tightened security and stepped up online censorship to ensure that the 30th anniversary of the brutal June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown would go by quietly.
Millions march in Hong Kong in a powerful rebuke of an extradition law feared to expose them to China's capricious justice system.
Hong Kong national security police on Thursday detained four people, including the brother of prominent activist Dennis Kwok, one of eight fugitives with bounties on their heads for allegedly breaching national security.
The city's national security department "took in two men and two women from various districts in Hong Kong and Kowloon for investigation," a police source told AFP.
Among the four was the elder brother of former democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok, who is currently in the United States.
"(Kwok's elder brother) is now under investigation in the Western District police station," the source said.
Three others, "two women and a man", were taken in Tuesday by the national security department, authorities told AFP earlier Thursday.
AFP has requested comment from police on the most recent detentions. — AFP
Three family members of exiled democracy activist Nathan Law have been taken in for questioning on Tuesday, days after authorities issued a bounty on him and seven others accused of breaching the city's national security law.
Police officers from the national security department brought in Law's parents and elder brother without formally arresting them, a police source confirmed to AFP.
"It's understood that officers from the NSD took three people -- Nathan Law's parents and elder brother -- in for questioning," they said.
"So far, no arrest has been made." — AFP
The United States condemns Hong Kong authorities for issuing bounties linked to democracy activists based abroad, saying the move sets a dangerous precedent that could threaten human rights.
Hong Kong police offered bounties of HK$1 million (about $127,600) for information leading to the capture of eight prominent dissidents who live abroad and are wanted for national security crimes.
"The United States condemns the Hong Kong Police Force's issuance of an international bounty" against the eight activists, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says in a statement.
"The extraterritorial application of the Beijing-imposed National Security Law is a dangerous precedent that threatens the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people all over the world," he adds, saying China is engaging in "transnational repression efforts."
"We call on the Hong Kong government to immediately withdraw this bounty, respect other countries' sovereignty, and stop the international assertion of the National Security Law imposed by Beijing." — AFP
Hong Kong's top court has quashed the conviction of a journalist in relation to her investigation into an attack on democracy supporters by government loyalists in 2019.
It was a rare victory for the press industry in a city where two major independent news outlets have been forced to shut down since Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020.
"Happy -- I could not think of another word that can describe my mood right now," veteran journalist Bao Choy said outside the Court of Final Appeal after the judgement was handed down.
"I think this kind of happiness belongs to everyone in society." — AFP
Hong Kong police detained Alexandra Wong, a prominent democracy activist better known as "Grandma Wong" on Sunday, the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, AFP reporters said.
Wong was carrying flowers in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay shopping district, an area that for years was the site of June 4, 1989, commemorations, before authorities escorted her to a police van. AFP reporters saw a total of six people bundled into police vehicles. — AFP
- Latest
- Trending
