‘They saw this as a life-and-death struggle’: Hong Kong protests author on the moment he grasped the desperation of 2019 anti-extradition demonstrators

Lawyer Antony Dapiran, who has written a book about the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, reflects on the events of July 1, when demonstrators broke into Legco

He says the city’s government and Beijing are alienating the youth and middle class, and asks: ‘What is the future of Hong Kong, treating them like the enemy?’

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Protesters storm the Legislative Council Chamber in Tamar after a march against the extradition bill on July 1, 2019. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 7:30am, 17 Apr 2020Updated: 3:16pm, 17 Apr 2020

When Antony Dapiran’s City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong was published in 2017, chronicling the pro-democracy “umbrella movement”, little did he know that two years later he would write a second book, about the months-long anti-government protests that erupted in 2019 and further divided the community.

The opening pages of City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong, published on April 9, lyrically describe how tear gas canisters fly through the air with “feathery tails of smoke”, though the vapour stings the eyes like chilli pepper.

Dapiran, 45, a corporate lawyer, spent much time observing tear gas being used against the protesters in the latter part of 2019.

“Did I need to be there week after week when I could have watched it from home? I felt I wanted to be there, to see it for myself. It was probably good for my health, running up and down the streets every weekend,” he says with a laugh over the phone from his Hong Kong home, where he has been in quarantine since returning from Britain. “I had protection. I had a gas mask on.”

Protesters march in Hong Kong on July 1, 2019. Photo: Felix Wong

When large marches began in June against a since withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent from Hong Kong for trial in jurisdictions including mainland China, Dapiran joined the crowd. On June 16, one million people turned out, according to organisers, and he assumed the bill would be withdrawn immediately.

“I thought it would be similar to 2003, when half a million people protested against Article 23 and it was rescinded,” he says, referring to national security legislation the Hong Kong government tried to pass that year.