UK Edition
Police fired tear gas in Hong Kong on Sunday as thousands of protesters chanting pro-independence slogans defied social distancing rules to demonstrate against new security legislation.
Protesters gathered at noon local time in the Causeway Bay shopping district in the biggest demonstration since the coronavirus shutdown began earlier this year.
After about 30 minutes, protesters chanting “Hong Kong Independence is the only way out” moved off the pavement onto the road, and police fired tear gas and deployed water cannon.
Police accused protesters of starting fires and throwing glass bottles from above and said they had responded with "minimum necessary force, including tear gas." At least 120 people were arrested, mostly for “unlawful assembly.”
Hong Kong enjoys the right to freedom of assembly under the “one-country, two systems” framework set up before Britain handed the colony back to China in 1997, but the city is currently enforcing strict social distancing rules that ban groups of more than eight assembling in public.
Sunday's demonstration came after the annual congress of China’s rubber-stamp parliament on Friday introduced a draft bill that would strengthen "enforcement mechanisms" to “safeguard national security” in Hong Kong.
The proposed law would "guard against, stop and punish any separatism, subversion of the national regime, terrorist group activities and such behaviours that seriously harm national security."
It also targets “acts of foreign interference”, enabling Beijing to set up security agencies for law enforcement.
Zhang Yesui, a spokesman for the annual congress of parliament, said the security law was “highly necessary”.
But it has angered many people in Hong Kong, which was roiled by often violent protests for more than ten months last year after chief executive Carrie Lam proposed passing a law that would allow suspected criminals to be extradited to the mainland.
“The proposed national security law has sent a clear sign that Beijing is punishing us for what we did last year,” said Law, a 26-year-old engineer who was waving an independence flag at Sunday’s demonstration.
“The concept of independence wasn’t been widely accepted before but the increasing Beijing suppression has helped to spread it like a wildfire in Hong Kong,” he added.
The extradition bill that sparked last year's protests was eventually withdrawn, but not before the demonstrations had morphed into a wider movement against police violence and a perceived erosion of the city’s traditional freedoms by the government in Beijing.
The UK, Canada and Australia warned on Friday that "making such a law on Hong Kong’s behalf without the direct participation of its people, legislature or judiciary would clearly undermine the principle of ‘One Country, Two Systems’."
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged China to reconsider what he called a "disastrous proposal", saying it would "be a death knell for the high degree of autonomy Beijing promised for Hong Kong".
Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said on Sunday that Hong Kong's affairs belonged to “internal affairs of China”.
“We have seen increasingly rampant activities by Hong Kong organisations and radical localists in Hong Kong, escalating violence and terrorist activities, as well as excessive unlawful foreign meddling in Hong Kong affairs,” he said in a press conference. “All these have placed national security in serious jeopardy and pose a grave threat."
On the streets in Hong Kong, several protestors said they feared the island city's unique freedoms were about to be completely extinguished.
“The government has repeatedly showed that they’re ignoring the majority’s demands. The national security law is the end of Hong Kong,” said another demonstrator who gave her name only as Liz. “This is probably the last time for us to protest."