page_title: Carrie Lam
section_title: Persisting protests
hierarchical_section_title: Carrie Lam / Chief Executive / Anti-extradition bill protests / Persisting protests
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: Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor GBM GBS is a Hong Kong politician serving as the fourth and current Chief Executive of Hong Kong since 2017. She served as the Secretary for Development from 2007 to 2012 and Chief Secretary for Administration from 2012 to 2017.
  After graduating from the University of Hong Kong Lam joined the British Hong Kong civil service in 1980 and served in various government agencies. She became a key official in 2007 when she was appointed Secretary for Development. During her tenure, she earned the nickname "tough fighter" for her role in the controversial demolition of the Queen's Pier in 2008.
  Lam became Chief Secretary for Administration under the Leung Chun-ying administration in 2012. From 2013 to 2015 Lam headed the Task Force on Constitutional Development for the 2014 Hong Kong electoral reform and held talks with student and opposition leaders during the widespread protests. In the 2017 Chief Executive selection process, Lam obtained 777 votes from the 1,194-member appointed Election Committee as the Beijing-favoured candidate and became the first female Chief Executive of Hong Kong.
context_section_description: The protests took a dramatic turn on 1 July, the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong as a group of protesters stormed the Legislative Council Complex and vandalised the building, leaving graffiti such as "It was you who told me peaceful marches did not work." Lam refused to grant any of the five key demands requested by the protesters, namely the full withdrawal of the extradition bill, a commission of inquiry into the police misconduct, release and a possible amnesty of the arrested protesters, the retraction of the categorisation of the protests as "riots" and universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and Legislative Council. As the protests intensified and spread to different districts of the city, Lam saw her support in August 2019 fall to a record low of 17 per cent, with those opposed hitting 76 per cent, according to a survey released by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute. Satisfaction with the SAR government fell to 14 per cent, the lowest ever recorded in post-colonial times. Notwithstanding a 2017 pledge, she refused to resign, claiming the community needed her to "hold the fort".
  On 2 September 2019, Reuters published a recording of a behind-the-door talk that Lam had given in late August 2019 to several businesspeople. Lam said that "for a Chief Executive to have caused this huge havoc to Hong Kong is unforgivable. It's just unforgivable. If I have a choice, the first thing is to quit, having made a deep apology, is to step down." She also said "the political room for [the Chief Executive who serve two masters, Beijing and the Hong Kong people] maneuvering is very, very, very limited." Lam responded that the leak was "very inappropriate", and that she had "not even contemplated tendering resignation". Shortly after that, on 4 September Lam formally withdrew the bill after three months of unprecedented anti-government protests, but gave no sign of stepping down or conceding to any of the protesters' other four key demands. She only repeatedly stated that the Complaints Against Police Office (CAPO), a unit within the Police Force, and the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), a monitoring body, would still be able to handling the complaint cases as the accusations against police mismanagement, brutality and corruption mounted up, including the July 21 Yuen Long attack and August 31 Prince Edward station attack. Lam also held a dialogue session was held on 26 September as she pledged to communicate with the public, but no subsequent session has been held since then.
  Attempting to curb the ongoing protests, Carrie Lam on 4 October invoked the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to impose a law to ban wearing face masks in public gatherings which was later declared unconstitutional by the High Court in November. Protests and citywide flashmob rallies against the anti-mask law and the invocation of the emergency ordinance persisted throughout the month.
caption: 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 10 June.
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