Pro-democracy lawmakers were dragged out of Hong Kong's legislature by security guards on Thursday after they heckled the city's pro-Beijing leader for a second day running, the latest outburst of political rancour in the strife-torn city.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam has faced an outpouring of anger from her opponents since the legislature opened its doors for a new session on Wednesday, three months after the building was trashed by masked protesters.
Lam was unable to give a State of the Union-style policy speech on Wednesday after pro-democracy lawmakers, who form a minority on the pro-Beijing-stacked legislature, repeatedly interrupted her.
Instead, she was forced to deliver the address via a pre-recorded video.
Lam returned to the Legislative Council on Thursday to answer questions from lawmakers about the content of that policy speech.
But chaos erupted once again as her opponents chanted slogans and were dragged one-by-one from the chamber.
Later in the evening she hosted a Facebook Live event in which angry emojis and critical comments dominated her page.
Hong Kong has been rocked by the worst political unrest in decades.
Millions have taken to the streets, initially against a now-dropped bid to allow extraditions to the authoritarian Chinese mainland.
But after Beijing and Lam took a hard line, the movement snowballed into a broader push for democracy and police accountability.
Violence has escalated on both sides of the political divide with hardcore protesters wielding petrol bombs and stones, and police responding with ever-increasing amounts of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live rounds in recent weeks.
Vigilante attacks have also flourished.
A leading figure within Hong Kong's democracy movement said Thursday he was recovering after being set upon by a gang of hammer-wielding thugs, the latest assault on Beijing critics in Hong Kong.
Jimmy Sham, one of the protest movement's most recognisable faces, was left lying in a pool of blood late Wednesday after he was jumped by around five men in the district of Mong Kok.
"I will continue to fight for the five demands in a peaceful, rational and non-violent manner," Sham wrote on Facebook from his hospital bed.
– Street justice –
Sham is the main spokesman of the Civil Human Rights Front, a group which advocates non-violence and organised a series of record-breaking, peaceful marches earlier this summer.
The CHRF have called for a major rally on Sunday — although they are currently waiting for police permission for the event to go ahead.
Hardcore pro-democracy protesters have also increasingly meted out their own street justice, beating people who vocally disagree with their goals or are viewed to be government loyalists.
Hong Kong's instability is fuelled by years of growing fears Beijing is eroding the city's unique freedoms, contrary to a deal that outlined Hong Kong's 1997 return to China from British colonial rule.
Lam, who was appointed by a pro-Beijing stacked committee and has historically low approval ratings, has struggled to end the political crisis.
Wednesday's policy speech was billed as an attempt to win hearts and minds after four months of seething pro-democracy protests.
But it was heavily criticised both by opponents and even her allies for offering little in the way of a substantive political solution.
Instead, Lam focused on economic gripes, vowing to increase housing and land supply in a city that has one of the least affordable property markets in the world, and announcing a handful of subsidies.
But she gave no political concessions to the democracy movement and said progress could only be made once violence from protesters ends.
Activists have said they will only end their huge rallies if core demands are met, including an independent inquiry into the police, an amnesty for the more than 2,500 people arrested and fully free elections.
Both Lam and Beijing have repeatedly dismissed those demands and say Hong Kong's freedoms are being protected.
Hong Kongers need more support, dissidents tell German book fair
Frankfurt Am Main (AFP) Oct 17, 2019 –
Chinese dissident Liao Yiwu and former Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee on Thursday urged European countries to step up support for Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators, as they joined an umbrella vigil at the Frankfurt book fair.
"We need to work together with European countries, we must do everything we can to preserve freedom of expression and democracy in Hong Kong," Liao told a crowd of some 200 people, many of whom held up black umbrellas.
"Europe isn't clear about what's going on. That's because of what the communist government is doing," said the Berlin-based writer, who was jailed for a poem about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and whose works are banned in China.
Umbrellas are the symbol of the anti-government protest movement that has rocked the semi-autonomous territory in recent months, posing the biggest challenge to China's rule since the city's handover from Britain in 1997.
The demonstrations were initially sparked by opposition to a now-scrapped proposal to allow extraditions to mainland China.
But they have since morphed into a larger movement for democracy and police accountability, and have turned increasingly violent.
China has accused "external forces" of fuelling unrest in the Asian financial hub and has seized on supportive comments by Western politicians to back its claims.
– 'Free Gui Minhai' –
Former bookseller Lam, who fled to Taiwan earlier this year for fear of possible extradition to China, also took to the stage in the German city of Frankfurt to plead for stronger action.
He welcomed a draft US law that would link Hong Kong's special trading status to annual reviews of its respect for civil rights and the rule of law.
"I hope the EU, the UK government and others can bring in similar laws," Lam said, calling for sanctions on government officials and police officers who commit rights violations.
"By placing restrictions on them, by not allowing them to travel into the country or preventing them from investing. That would help Hong Kongers a lot."
Lam was one of five Hong Kong publishers selling gossip-filled tomes on China's leaders who vanished at the end of 2015, before resurfacing in Chinese custody.
He and three others were released in 2016, but Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, remains in detention in unclear circumstances.
Organisers of the Frankfurt vigil called for his release and read out a letter by his daughter Angela who has led efforts to keep her father's case in the media.
"It's been four very long years and I'm exhausted," she wrote from Sweden, accusing the Chinese government of a harassment campaign against her.
"More often than not quitting seems very easy," she said, thanking supporters for "always showing up for my father".
"Here's to him being with us next year."
The Frankfurt book fair, the world's largest, has staged a series of events since 2016 under the banner #FreeGuiMinhai, while Germany itself has emerged as a country of refuge for a number of Chinese and Hong Kong dissidents.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas last month drew Beijing's ire when he met prominent Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong.
On her last trip to Beijing, Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong "must be guaranteed".
