Chapter 14 Reddening Hong Kong (3)

In March 2019, Xi Jinping’s government ordered Hong Kong to sacrifice the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, so CCP didn’t have to use triad tactics like they did in 2015 to arrest people for imprisonment in the mainland but could be explicitly arrested and sent back to the mainland for trial under the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance Amendment Bill, which aroused strong opposition among the Hong Kong public. From March 15, the Hong Kong people staged a sit-in in front of the government headquarters to demand the withdrawal of the amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance. The Civil Human Rights Front launched two demonstrations between March and April, to June 9 ; a large-scale demonstration broke out, a large number of people participated and one million Hong Kong people took to the streets. Climax came again on June 12 and 16 when there was another large-scale demonstration having “ Five Demands” including asking Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor to resign and step down, etc. . The “five demands” were: 1. withdraw the “fugitive offenders ordinance” amendment, 2. withdraw the demonstration “riot” characterization, 3. withdraw the arrested charges, 4. Independent investigation to investigate the abuse of violence by the police force, and 5. Realization of “genuine dual universal suffrage”.

On July 1, some protesters occupied the Legislative Council Building. Almost every week protesters launched protests and clashes though the police were intensified. In August, protesters paralyzed the Hong Kong International Airport twice In October, fierce demonstrations erupted in Hong Kong, causing even more clashes and in November, the “three strikes” further escalated, with fierce clashes between the police and the public at the two universities of CUHK and PolyU in which the police used batons, pepper spray, tear gas, water hoses, rubber bullets, and cloth bags. The clashes resulted in at least 15 deaths (including 4 suicidal protesting youths), over 2,600 protesters and 600 police officers were injured; there were 10,000 arrests and over 2,500 underwent prosecutions. The protest movement went on for almost a year without a unified leadership, mainly through social media contacts and calls for organizations, with demonstrations, rallies, sit-ins, singing, shouting, “three strikes”, non-cooperation movement, road blocking, setting up the Lennon wall, “undercover” and other ways to express their purposes. Most of the participants were peaceful, with the youngest 11 years old and the oldest 84 years old.

On November 24, 2019 during Hong Kong District Council elections, 1.8 million voters voted for the democratic camp, the democrats won 389 out of the 450 District Council seats the pro-communist “pro-establishment” collapsed and were defeated. The Liaison Office of the CCP failed to control the election. Hong Kong people thus have rewritten the history with the votes indicating that the CCP has lost the hearts of the people.

In 2019, Hong Kong experienced an unprecedented demonstration movement of one million people. The protesters raised the banner of “Restoration of Hong Kong, Revolution of the Times”, shouted “God destroy the CCP”, “Death to the whole family of the Communist Party”, “No National Day, only national mourning” and posted “conscience” stickers and cartoons of Xi Jinping. There were rallies and demonstrations in 50 cities in 9 countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Japan, South America, Taiwan, etc.. On October 1, 2109, one million people participated in the rally.