User:Vampyricon/16 June 2019 Hong Kong protest

16 June 2019 Hong Kong protest march

The 16 June 2019 Hong Kong protest was held by the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) on 16 June 2019 in the same vein as an earlier protest on 9 June. Due to the postponement of the extradition bill amendment bill on 15 June, the main thrust of public criticism had pivoted from the bill itself to the abuse of authority by the police during the protest on 12 June. Five demands were proposed in the protest: A full withdrawal of the extradition bill, the release and exoneration of arrested protesters, an inquiry into the excesses of the police such as the use of tear gas and rubber bullets and the prosecution of protesters using medical information from hospitals, the retraction of the characterization of the 12 June 2019 protests as "riots", and the resignation of the Chief Executive Carrie Lam. The government did not respond to these requests, which caused significant delays to the resolution of the protest movement.

The protest received international coverage, reaching the headlines of the American print editions of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Estimates of the number of protesters have often differed severalfold between protest organizers and the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF), and the number of participants in this protest became a focus of international media. The organizers of this protest estimated 2 million and 1 protesters, beating out the 28 May 1989 protest of 1.5 million in support of Beijing students protesting for the democratization of China as the greatest protest in the history of Hong Kong. However, the HKPF estimated only 338 thousand took part in the demonstration at its peak. However, the method used by the HKPF to count the number of protesters has led to skepticism of their estimate by news media such as Reuters, the BBC, CommonWealth Magazine, and the Hong Kong Free Press. The speed at which this protest was organized, and the fact that there were enough protesters that the protest spilled over onto adjacent roads, caused even more difficulties in counting their numbers. Of the many third-party estimates, Reuters and Japanese media only cited social scientist Paul Yip's estimate of "500-800 thousand people".

Background
In 2019, the Hong Kong government proposed an amendment to the extradition law which would allow, on a "case-by-case basis", the Chief Executive of Hong Kong to extradite fugitives to any territory with which Hong Kong does not have an extradition treaty, such as "other parts of China outside Hong Kong". This amendment bill was proposed in response to the murder of Poon Hiu-wing in Taiwan, and is stated to plug a "serious legal loophole". While it is claimed that this amendment bill would "retain and apply all human rights safeguards" of the original extradition bill, concerns have been raised as soon as it was proposed as to whether such an amendment would weaken the independence of Hong Kong's judiciary. As of January 2022, fugitives still cannot be transferred to Taiwan under Hong Kong law.

On 20 May, the government demanded that the extradition bill amendment bill be examined directly during the Legislative Council meeting of 12 June, bypassing the Bills Committee. This led to a protest on 9 June organized by the CHRF in protest of the forcible submission of the bill. The organizers claimed 1.03 million citizens participated in the demonstration, while the HKPF claimed 240 thousand at its peak. That night, the government once again stated its intention to submit the bill directly for examination.

In order to prevent the second reading of the bill by the Legislative Council, many Hongkongers went on strike and instead held a protest in Admiralty. Afterwards, they occupied the roads near the Legislative Council in order to prevent the meeting from being held. The police used rubber bullets and bean bag rounds, among other weapons, against protesters, leading to more than 80 casualties. The Hong Kong Police Force categorized this protest as a "riot", causing anger among the populace. As such, on 13 June, the Civil Human Rights Front applied for a demonstration on 16 June with the police.

Second demonstration by the CHRF
In the afternoon of 15 June, Chief Executive Carrie Lam held a press conference announcing the postponement of work on the extradition bill amendment bill, and communicate with the public. She stated that the government would decide on the next step after it takes into account differing opinions and reports to the Legislative Council's Panel on Security, such that legislators' opinions can be taken into account. She has further stated that there was no intention to set a deadline for such work.

The CHRF responded by pointing out that a postponement was not a withdrawal, and thus the protest will take place as planned.

Death of Marco Leung Ling-kit
Around 4:00 p.m. on 15 June, the 35-year-old Marco Leung was sitting dangerously on a platform on Queensway's Pacific Place. He was wearing a yellow raincoat on whose back "Lam Cheng kills Hong Kong; Dirty Cops are Cold-Blooded" was written. He had also hung up banners which said "No Extradition To China" in both Chinese and English as well as "Fully withdraw extradition to China; we are not rioters; release injured students; Lam Cheng, step down; Help Hong Kong". The police quickly blocked off two of the westward lanes of Queensway to handle the incident. The police only allowed their Negotiation Cadre to negotiate with Leung, and stopped legislator Roy Kwong Chun-yu from approaching.

At around 9:00 p.m., Leung suddenly climbed off the scaffolding. Many firefighters attempted to pull him back onto the platform, but failed. Although there was an inflated jump rescue cushion on the ground, it could not be placed next to the building due to the scaffolding and the fences between the sidewalk and the road. As such, Leung landed on the sidewalk between the building and the cushion, and fell unconscious with heavy injuries. He was sent to Ruttonjee Hospital, but died of his injuries. He left two wills, addressing his posthumous affairs and expressing his opposiiton to the extradition bill respectively. Afterwards, Hongkongers, inlcuding Chu Yiu-ming, one of the founders of the Occupy Central movement, offered flowers outside Pacific Place in Leung's memory.

After the incident, pro-Beijing web media Dot Dot News quoted online rumors which claim Leung was connected with several crimes and only acted due to having received money from Kwong. They further claimed that Leung's final call was with Kwong, discussing the problem of monetary transfers, as well as Kwong left without acknowledging Leung's fall. Kwong called such rumormongers dispicable, and described Dot Dot News as "making news by trampling on the dead", disgraceful, and violating basic ethical principles. Kwong also claimed that their report throws in wild accusations, and has stated that he would seek legal action against the libelous report.

16 June


Much like the protest on 9 June, this protest started in the Central Lawn of Victoria Park in Causeway Bay and ended at the Legislative Council Complex in Tim Mei Avenue of Admiralty, but the police also opened up the six football pitches due to the turnout. The organizers recommended that participants wear black clothing. At around noon, participants slowly gathered at Victoria Park. However, at around 2 p.m. when the protest march was about to begin, waves of protesters surged towards Hong Kong Island. Major transit stations of the MTR were filled with protesters in black clothing, forcing them to enact crowd management measures, including stopping escalators, sending staff to guide passengers, halting entry into stations, and sending out more trains. The platforms in Tin Hau Station, which is near Victoria Park, became too crowded starting at 2:00 p.m., and certain trains skipped the station. This measure was cancelled one hour later. Some train operators used the announcement system to express support for the protest.

Regarding other transportation, KMB announced that morning that they would allocate more buses to cross-harbor routes, including routes number 102, 106, 112, and 116, as well as routes connecting the New Territories to Hong Kong Island. Starting from the afternoon, large numbers of protesters arrived at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel's bus transfer hub for busses to Hong Kong Island, causing the queue to extend into the Hung Hom MTR station. At the same time, quite a few citizens decided to Victoria Harbour using the Star Ferry, leading to large crowds around the Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier. The end of the line reached the Avenue of Stars, near the InterContinental Hong Kong. Due to the crowds, several Star Ferry employees and police officers were on site to maintain order, and more employees were sent to the back of the line to organize the queue. Not long afterwards, the line extended over a kilometer.

Due to the number of protesters, the CHRF decided to start the march at 2:43 p.m., earlier than the planned start time of 3:00 p.m. Banners with the words "痛心疾首" and "Withdraw the bill" were held at the front of the march. Other protesters had already started marching on Causeway Road prior to the official starting time, causing the stretch of road outside Victoria Park to be blocked off earlier, in contrast with the arrangements on 9 June. The police force was also more lenient regarding the arrangements of the protest, and did not stop citizens joining in from Yee Wo Street or Lee Garden Road in Causeway Bay, or Hennessy Road in Wan Chai, and further opened up a stretch of King's Road's tram rails so protesters could directly join the protest from the Fortress Hill MTR station. The tail end of the protest has stretched to North Point.

17 & 18 June
Although most protesters have left by around 2 a.m. on 17 June, the government headquarters, Harcourt Road, Lung Wo Road, and the streets surrounding the Legislative Council are still occupied by protesters. There were around 100 people on Harcourt Road, and many police vehicles were guarding the Office of the Chief Executive. At 7 a.m., the Senior Superintendent of Police (Community Relations) of the Police Public Relations Branch, Yu Hoi Kwan, suggested that protesters on Harcourt Road and Lung Wo Road return to the sidewalk, and emphasized that it was not an attempt to clear the scene. Around 150 police officers and negotiators attempted to persuade protesters to leave, but returned after 1 hour, unsuccessful. The police temporarily retreated at 8 a.m. However, as there were no protesters making a stand on Lung Wo Road, police officers left after removing the protesters' perimeter, and reopened the road at 8:30 a.m. The government announced that the government headquarters will remain closed.

At 10 a.m., protesters originally sitting on Harcourt Road and the embankments on both sides cleaned up the garbage on the ground, then moved to Tamar Park, the sidewalk on Tim Mei Avenue, and the designated protest area of LegCo, allowing traffic to flow through Harcourt Road once more. Protesters participating in negotiations stated that they did so as a gesture of goodwill towards the government, and wished to gain the approval of citizens. Au Nok-hin, who arrived to coordinate, stated that occupying the road would lead to adverse consequences, and advised protesters to save their strength. At 10:53 a.m., Harcourt Road was once again open to traffic.

In the afternoon, around 400 citizens gathered at the designated protest area of the Legislative Council. At the time, some of the gathered protesters suggested a march to the Chief Executive's residence of the Government House, or to hold another memorial for Marco Leung Ling-kit, but no consensus was reached. At 4 p.m., Eddie Chu rallied citizens to gather outside the Office of the Chief Executive to reiterate some of the Five Demands, namely the withdrawal of the extradition bill amendment and to retract the characterization of the 12 June protest as a riot. Chu believed Carrie Lam should respond within a set time, instead of having them wait indefinitely. The number of protesters gathered had passed a thousand, and quite a few were standing directly on Lung Wo Road. Some others placed traffic cones to stop vehicles from passing through, in effect occupying Lung Wo Road. By the evening, there were still more than 500 protesters gathered, and in the early hours of 18 June, there remained more than 100 people, but the situation was peaceful. At the time, all lanes of Lung Wo Road were still blocked by traffic cones. Police officers had not attempted to stop them since the afternoon of 17 June, hence Lung Wo Road was still closed to traffic.

At 3 a.m. on 18 June, the several dozen protesters remaining moved to the protest area in LegCo due to the weather, and Lung Wo Road was free of protesters. At around 6 a.m., Lung Wo Road was reopened to traffic after police officers cleared out the traffic cones. However, the section of Tim Wa Avenue in front of the Office of the Chief Executive was still closed. Many police officers guarded the area, and many crowd control barriers were present. The government headquarters were reopened as well.

Number of participants
The number of participants is controversial. The numbers reported by the organizers and the police force regularly differ by severalfold, and some Hongkongers have taken to using the average as the true number. Other Hongkongers ignore the data provided by the police, as their numbers report the number of protesters at the beginning and at the peak, differing from the organizers' and third-party observers' estimates of the total number of protesters. However, due to foreign media coverage of this protest, participant number estimates have come under unprecedented scrutiny. The statistical methodology and its politicization have also been the subject of in-depth reports by foreign media. The organizers have reported that the number of protesters was "close to 2 million and 1" (the "1" represents Marco Leung Ling-kit, who fell to his death on 15 June due to his anti-extradition bill protest), breaking the 1.5 million record of the Worldwide Chinese Protest March in support of the 1989 student protests to become the protest with the greatest number of participants reported by the organizers. However, the police reported a peak number of 338 thousand. The vast gulf between the statistics led to skepticism by a wide variety of media including Reuters, the BBC, and CommonWealth Magazine. The speed at which this protest was organized, and the fact that there were enough protesters that the protest spilled over onto adjacent roads, caused even more difficulties in counting protester numbers. Of the many third-party estimates, Reuters and Japanese media only cited social scientist Paul Yip Siu Fai's estimate of "500-800 thousand people".

Other estimates that went uncited by foreign media include building surveyor Edward Yiu's flow rate model, which yielded between 1.12 and 1.84 million protesters, and economist Francis Lui's area-based model, which yielded 400 thousand. However, when Texas State University geographer Edwin Chow Tzee Kiu reviewed Lui's use of the model for the 9 June protest, it was found that the area was 148 thousand square kilometers, instead of the 105 thousand square kilometers as stated by Lui. ASI Analytics & Media used big data to track the trending moving average of keywords and predicted before the protest occured that the number of protesters would exceed 892 thousand with 85% probability and 1.44 million with 72% probability, and warned that public opinion is turbulent.

On 13 September, when the CHRF appealed the rejection of their planned protest gathering and protest on 15 September by the police, the Department of Justice lawyer representing the police rejected the appeal, stating that if 2 million people joined the protest on 15 September, the police may not be able to maintain order.

Global support
After the 16 June protest, many cities worldwide also held anti-extradition bill protests.

Government
A government spokesperson held a press release at 8:29 p.m. on 16 June, stating Chief Executive Carrie Lam apologizes for the extradition bill amendment, but didd not respond to any of the organizers' requests.

[...] The Government understands that these views have been made out of love and care for Hong Kong. The Chief Executive clearly heard the views expressed in a peaceful and rational manner. [...] [...] The Government reiterated that there is no timetable for restarting the process. The Chief Executive admitted that the deficiencies in the Government's work had led to substantial controversies and disputes in society, causing disappointment and grief among the people. The Chief Executive apologised to the people of Hong Kong for this and pledged to adopt a most sincere and humble attitude to accept criticisms and make improvements in serving the public. On 18 June, Carrie Lam made her first public appearance after the 16 June protest and personally apologized to Hongkongers, but contrary to expectations did not bow in apology or officially withdraw the amendment bill.

China
On 24 September 2021, 2021年9月24日，China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) published List of Truths About America's Interference in Hong Kong's Affairs and Support for Anti-China, Chaosifying-Hong-Kong Forces, which lists in detail the United States and other western countries' speech and actions in regards to Hong Kong's affairs. The MFA criticized Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's statements, and further claimed that the protest of 16 June was "a public act of indulging and encouraging the use of illegal and violent methods by anti-China forces and forces destabilizing Hong Kong to oppose the central and SAR governments". (not sure if these two cites should be merged)

USA
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi described the protest of 2 million people "a beautiful sight to behold".