Fears controversial bill, which has its second reading next week, will allow China to target political enemies with impunity

'The last fight for Hong Kong': activists gear up over extradition law

It has been called “the nail in Hong Kong’s coffin”, a bill that activists say will “legitimise Chinese abduction” from the city. But the city’s legislators are pushing ahead with the controversial extradition law that will give mainland China the right to request the transfer of alleged criminals.

Opponents have geared up for a fight, with a rally on Sunday expected to draw up to half a million people onto the city’s streets. The demonstration is supported by human rights and legal groups and the leaders of Hong Kong’s movement to preserve its tenuous grip on democracy.

They fear the law, which will have its second reading before the legislature next week, will be used by Beijing to target its political enemies. It has prompted despair from many, who worry it heralds the effective end of the city’s independence from China.

In its current form, the legislation would allow for case-by-case extraditions to mainland China and eliminate some oversight roles of the chief executive’s cabinet and the city’s legislative body. The legislature is seeking to pass it before the summer break in July.

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“All they need is a witness statement saying you committed some crime 20 years ago,” says Martin Lee QC, a barrister, former legislator and leading pro-democracy figure. “That is enough, and then you’ll be tried according to Chinese law in a Chinese court. And who can trust that system?”

Quick guide What are the Hong Kong protests about? Show Hide Why are people protesting? The protests were triggered by a controversial bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, where the Communist party controls the courts, but have since evolved into a broader pro-democracy movement. Public anger – fuelled by the aggressive tactics used by the police against demonstrators – has collided with years of frustration over worsening inequality and the cost of living in one of the world's most expensive, densely populated cities. The protest movement was given fresh impetus on 21 July when gangs of men attacked protesters and commuters at a mass transit station – while authorities seemingly did little to intervene. Underlying the movement is a push for full democracy in the city, whose leader is chosen by a committee dominated by a pro-Beijing establishment rather than by direct elections.

Protesters have vowed to keep their movement going until their core demands are met, such as the resignation of the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, an independent inquiry into police tactics, an amnesty for those arrested and a permanent withdrawal of the bill. Lam announced on 4 September that she was withdrawing the bill. Why were people so angry about the extradition bill? Beijing’s influence over Hong Kong has grown in recent years, as activists have been jailed and pro-democracy lawmakers disqualified from running or holding office. Independent booksellers have disappeared from the city, before reappearing in mainland China facing charges. Under the terms of the agreement by which the former British colony was returned to Chinese control in 1997, the semi-autonomous region was meant to maintain a “high degree of autonomy” through an independent judiciary, a free press and an open market economy, a framework known as “one country, two systems”. The extradition bill was seen as an attempt to undermine this and to give Beijing the ability to try pro-democracy activists under the judicial system of the mainland. How have the authorities responded? Beijing has issued increasingly shrill condemnations but has left it to the city's semi-autonomous government to deal with the situation. Meanwhile police have violently clashed directly with protesters, repeatedly firing teargas and rubber bullets. Beijing has ramped up its accusations that foreign countries are “fanning the fire” of unrest in the city. China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi has ordered the US to “immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any form”. Lily Kuo and Verna Yu in Hong Kong

Critics have accused the Hong Kong administration, led by Carrie Lam, of being “Beijing’s puppet”. But Lam’s administration claims the bill closes a legal loophole. It says the law – and the rush to pass it – is justified because of the case of a man wanted for the murder of his girlfriend in Taiwan.

Eroding automony

Hong Kong’s independent legal system was protected under the laws governing the territory’s return from British to Chinese rule 22 years ago and is seen by the financial hub’s business and diplomatic communities as its strongest remaining asset amid encroachments from Beijing.

But the city’s independence – which is supposedly guaranteed until 2047 – has been slowly eroding, particularly since Xi Jinping took over as leader of the Communist Party in 2012.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters dressed as Chinese police during a protest to demand authorities scrap a proposed extradition bill with China Photograph: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Last year, six members of the so-called “pan-democrat alliance” were expelled from parliament and pro-democracy candidates were disqualified from by-elections. Leaders and organisers of the 2014 pro-democracy protests that occupied parts of the city for almost three months have been jailed.

These watershed moments, plus attempts to bring in national security laws, have created a citizenry hostile to any further encroachments from the mainland. The extradition bill appears to be the last straw. In Hong Kong’s parliament disagreements over the issue have led to literal blows.

‘The little boat is sinking’

Critics say the law heralds the end of the “one country, two systems” policy, under which Hong Kong has prospered as an international business and finance hub.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has expressed “serious reservations”, saying such measures “would undermine perceptions of Hong Kong as a safe and secure haven for international business operations.”

Observers also worry about politically motivated arrests of foreigners. Following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada, two Canadians were quickly detained in China.

In a joint statement, the UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said they were worried about the potential effect of the proposals on the “large number of UK and Canadian citizens in Hong Kong”.

Hong Kong extradition bill is 'terrible blow' to rule of law, says Patten Read more

The former British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, has warned that the law would be the “worst thing” to happen in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover. The law would “remove the firewall between Hong Kong’s rule of law and the idea of law which prevails in communist China” Patten said in video commentary posted online on Thursday. “An idea of law where there aren’t any independent courts, where the courts and the security services and the party’s rule, which are sometimes pretty obscure, are rolled all together,” he said, referring to China’s ruling Communist party.

Ray Wong, an independence activist now living in Berlin, this week said it was “the nail in Hong Kong’s coffin.”

“Because if this law is passed the legal system in Hong Kong will be destroyed. Hong Kong will be just another city in China,” he said.

Claudia Mo, a pan-democrat legislator, agrees: “They are trying to integrate Hong Kong so much into the mainland to the point that Hong Kong is to be disappeared,” she says. “The little boat of Hong Kong is sinking fast.”

China’s history of targeting dissidents on unrelated charges is well documented. In 2015, five booksellers who published salacious fictional material about China’s leaders from Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay disappeared from their homes only for some to reappear in mainland China confessing to non-political crimes like 13-year-old traffic offences.

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In 2008, journalist Cheong Ching was released after more than 1,000 days in jail for spying, in what he believes was retribution for writing an article critical of the Chinese Communist party.

Ching says had they admitted the article was the motivation, there would have been an “uproar”.

“[So] when the Hong Kong government says they aren’t going to send political prisoners to China, the problem is if China is making a request it will never be on political grounds.”

Lee, who has been referred to as Hong Kong’s “father of democracy”, is an internationally recognised campaigner for the political freedom the city was promised after 1997.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martin Lee QC, a pro-democracy veteran, politician and barrister, in his Hong Kong chambers. Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

He predicts many businesses who have based themselves inside Hong Kong’s protective borders will pack up and go.

“How can you do business in China by observing all the laws in China? There are too many restrictions, so you cut corners and pay bribes,” he says.

But Pro-Beijing government members are resolute, and accuse the opposition of fear-mongering.

Regina Ip, a legislator and cabinet member, and a former secretary of security, says the bill is intended to fight crime across borders, and that mainland China is Hong Kong’s most important crime-fighting partner because of high cross-border traffic by offenders.

Ip has accused opponents of spreading “lies and falsehoods” about the new law and has dismissed concerns Beijing would abuse the system.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Regina Ip, a Hong Kong legislator and chair of the New People’s Party Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

“We’re not facing a situation where any ordinary Hong Kong person, because of some past dispute in mainland China, can be whisked across the border,” she says.

“All the human rights guarantees are there.”

Ip is adamant that the international outcry and the protest on Sunday – no matter how big – will have no impact. “If you cave in because of mass protest, that will encourage people to organise more protests on all sorts of China-sensitive issues,” she says.

But opponents of the bill also believe losing the battle is not an option. “This is now I think the last fight for Hong Kong,” says Lee.

The Guardian traveled to Hong Kong with the assistance of the Judith Neilson Institute