A mass protest against the Hong Kong government’s controversial extradition proposal, on April 28, proved once again that no one should underestimate Hongkongers when it comes to defending their values. Photo: AFP
Opinion
Opinion
by Michael Chugani
Opinion
by Michael Chugani
Hong Kong’s democracy movement is roaring back, thanks to Carrie Lam’s inexplicable extradition bill
Five years after the failure of the Occupy movement, protesters are out in force again. The latest protest against the government’s proposed extradition arrangement with the mainland is the biggest since Lam became chief executive
Am I seeing things or has Hong Kong's democracy movement come back from the dead? I had intended this column as an obituary of the movement but last Sunday's mass protest proved once again that no one should underestimate Hongkongers when it comes to defending their values.
Who should the democracy movement thank for firing it up? Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, that’s who. Hongkongers are, on the whole, a tolerant lot. They don’t rampage through the city – unlike the French – even though they live in a city with the world’s highest home prices, stagnant wages, no retirement pension and a failing health care system.
But they have a bottom line – their civil liberties. Mess with that and you’ll feel their wrath. They believe Lam crossed that line by proposing an extradition treaty with the mainland. That’s why 130,000 protesters – or 22,800, according to the police – took to the streets last Sunday.
Most Hongkongers have zero faith in the mainland’s judicial system, characterised by its closed trials, forced confessions, and politicised rulings. Lam’s determination to rush through a treaty with Beijing stoked the worst fears of Hongkongers.
They were reminded of the abductions of Hong Kong booksellers by mainland agents, one-day murder trials, and the detention without trial of two Canadians in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Huawei executive at the extradition request of the United States.
The government’s refusal to withdraw its extradition proposal was a godsend to the democracy movement, which used it to unify its divided followers. Whether the turnout was 130,000 or 22,800, last Sunday’s protest was still the largest since Lam became chief executive.
Before last weekend, the democracy movement had become a shadow of its former self after the failure of the Occupy protests. It was no longer the unifying force that once fired up half a million people to protest against sweeping national security legislation in 2003, or tens of thousands to occupy streets in 2014 to demand greater democracy.
Will Lam lose sleep over last Sunday’s mass protest? I don’t know but she has already made clear that the huge turnout won’t force her to abandon her extradition proposal or to have a sit-down with opposition legislators.
What troubles me is how the opposition now sees little difference between Lam and Leung Chun-ying, her predecessor whom the opposition loathed. This new-found hostility towards Lam doesn’t bode well for our politics.
I've tried hard to understand why Lam is so intent on rushing through extradition arrangements to cover jurisdictions we don’t yet have deals with, including the mainland, when the most pressing case only involves a Hongkonger alleged to have murdered his Hong Kong girlfriend in Taiwan.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam leaves after answering questions about the extradition law from pro-democracy lawmakers at the Legislative Council on April 3. The government’s hurry to amend the law has prompted speculation that Lam is under pressure from Beijing. Photo: AP
Why insist on a broad extradition law when a one-off deal to extradite the alleged murderer to Taiwan would have the support of the opposition, the business lobby, the legal community and ordinary Hongkongers, who are all apprehensive about a deal with the mainland?
Only Lam can answer that. So far neither she, her top officials, nor local loyalists have given a satisfying answer, prompting speculation that she is under pressure from Beijing to get a deal done so the mainland can target political enemies for extraditable offences.
It is pointless to argue, as local officials have done, that Hong Kong’s independent judiciary is a gatekeeper against abuses of extradition when our government has tacitly admitted the mainland’s legal system is opaque. It made that admission by excluding some white-collar crimes which the business community feared would expose its members to unfair mainland trials.
Our independent judiciary's gatekeeping role is in fact a paradox. If even one out of 100 is extradited to face possible unfair justice in an opaque legal system, it makes nonsense of the gatekeeping.
But if the judiciary’s gatekeeping role is so ironclad that no one is extradited, it makes nonsense of Lam’s extradition treaty with the mainland.
Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong journalist and TV show host
