Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam issued a public apology Tuesday amid a spiraling political crisis, stopping far short of demands from demonstrators that she completely cancel a controversial extradition bill, exonerate protesters and resign from her post as the city’s chief executive.
The former British colony, now a semiautonomous region of China, has been rocked by a week of massive protests as millions of people took to the streets to oppose the bill, which for the first time would allow criminal suspects to be transferred to mainland China for trial. Critics accuse Lam of being a “puppet” of Beijing, which they say is steadily chipping at the city’s freedoms.
“I have heard you loud and clear and have reflected deeply on all that has transpired,” Lam said at a press conference. She said government “deficiencies” were responsible for unrest in recent months, and that she herself was largely to blame. “For this, I offer my most sincere apology to all the people in Hong Kong,” she said.
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Lam’s apology is unlikely to appease the demonstrators, who want her to completely scrap the bill and step down. They also demand that protesters arrested during the demonstrations be released and all charges dropped. An earlier demand that police retract their designation of a June 12 protest as a “riot” was met late Monday.
Organizers said some 1.03 million people joined an initial march on June 9, and a protest the following Wednesday numbered in the tens of thousands and ended in violence that left more than 80 people injured as police used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.
Lam announced Saturday that the legislation would be suspended but not fully withdrawn, further angering her detractors a day before another massive march was planned. That same evening, a young man plunged to his death from scaffolding outside a shopping mall after hanging a protest banner from its side.
Immediately hailed as a martyr, the planned Sunday march brought even bigger crowds to the streets to mourn the man’s death. Organizers said more than 2 million people joined what is believed to be the largest demonstration in the city’s history, trailed closely by the one held only a week before.
Adding energy to the protest movement, activist Joshua Wong, was released early from prison Monday after serving part of a sentence related to the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement protests he led in 2014. Wong, now 22, walked out of prison with a stack of books, spoke with the media, ate breakfast and then immediately joined the protests.
Speaking at a rally in front of the Hong Kong legislature, Wong joined the calls for Lam to step down.
“Now is the time for me to join this fight,” he told reporters. “It’s time for us to urge Carrie Lam to withdraw the extradition law proposal and it is her responsibility to step down.”
