page_title: 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
section_title: Hong Kong government
hierarchical_section_title: 2019–20 Hong Kong protests / Reactions / Hong Kong government
caption_attribution_description: 中文: 2019年6月10日上午香港特區行政長官林鄭月娥舉行記者會談逃犯條例修法和凌晨警察和示威者對峙事件（美國之音記者申華拍攝）
context_page_description: The ongoing 2019–20 Hong Kong protests were triggered by the introduction of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill by the Hong Kong government. The now aborted bill would have allowed extradition to jurisdictions with which Hong Kong did not have extradition agreements, including mainland China and Taiwan. This led to concerns that Hong Kong residents and visitors would be exposed to the legal system of mainland China, thereby undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and infringing civil liberties. It set off a chain of protest actions that began with a sit-in at the government headquarters on 15 March 2019, a demonstration attended by hundreds of thousands on 9 June 2019, followed by a gathering outside the Legislative Council Complex to stall the bill's second reading on 12 June which escalated into violence that caught the world's attention.
  On 16 June, just one day after the Hong Kong government suspended the bill, an even bigger protest took place to push for its complete withdrawal and in reaction to the perceived excessive use of force by the police on 12 June.
context_section_description: Carrie Lam continued to push for the second reading of the bill despite a mass anti-extradition bill protest that attracted one million people, (according to the organisers) saying that the government was "duty-bound" to amend the law. Following the 12 June conflict, both Police Commissioner Stephen Lo and Lam characterised the conflict as a "riot". The police later backed down on the claim, saying that among the protesters, only five of them rioted. Protesters demanded that the government fully retract the riot characterisation. Lam's analogy as Hong Kong people's mother attracted criticisms after the violent crackdown on 12 June.
  Lam announced the suspension of the bill on 15 June 2019, and officially apologised to the public on 18 June two days after another massive march. In early July, Lam reiterated that the bill "had passed away" and reaffirmed that all efforts to amend the law had ceased, though her use of language was thought to be ambiguous. During July and August 2019, the government insisted that it would not make any concessions, that the IPCC would suffice to investigate police misconduct, and that Lam could still lead despite calls asking for her resignation.
  After condemning the protesters who had stormed the legislature on 1 July for their "use of extreme violence", and those who had defaced the national emblem during the 21 July protest, Lam suggested in early August 2019 that the protests had deviated from their original purpose and that their goal now was to challenge China's sovereignty and damage "one country, two systems". She suggested that radical protesters were dragging Hong Kong to a "path of no return" and that they had "no stake in society".
  On 4 September 2019, Lam announced that she would formally withdraw the extradition bill, introduce measures such as adding new members to the IPCC, engage in dialogue at the community level, and invite academics to join an "independent review committee", which has no investigative powers, to evaluate Hong Kong's deep-rooted problems. However, protesters and democrats had previously affirmed that their five core demands must be answered. Her concessions were described as "too little, too late", as the conflicts would not have escalated had she withdrawn the bill during the early stages of the protest. The first dialogue session was held on 26 September 2019. However, critics doubted Lam's ability to solve the problems during these discussions since a Chinese envoy had stated previously that the HKSAR government would not make any more concessions.
  On 5 October 2019, after what Lam referred to as "extreme violence" had taken place, an emergency law from the colonial era was enacted to ban face masks in Hong Kong—without declaring a state of emergency—which sparked criticism from various human rights organisations. Some political analysts warned that invoking the emergency law would be "the beginning of authoritarianism in Hong Kong", as Beijing toughtened its stance on the protests. The democrats filed a judicial review to challenge Lam's decision, and the High Court ruled that the mask ban was unconstitutional. In April 2020, after the government had filed an appeal, the court ruled that the ban is only unconstitutional during legal demonstrations, and ruled that the police cannot physically remove the face masks worn by violators.
  To cope with the ongoing protests, on 15 November 2019, the police had appointed no more than 100 Correctional Services Department (CSD) officers as special constables to assist them. In May 2020, the authorities announced they would recruit more personnel from the other five disciplinary services and bring the total number of special constables to 700. Several protesters who were detained at a correctional facility in Pik Uk reported that they had been tortured and physically abused by guards. They reported that the guards beat their hands and feet, slapped their face, then forced them to slap themselves after they were taken to a room without security camera during their time in detention. CSD responded by saying that all de
caption: Chief Executive Carrie Lam at the press conference with Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng and Secretary for Security John Lee one day after the massive protest on 9 June 2019.
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