Lawmaker Gary Fan is carried on a stretcher carry away on a stretcher after clashes with pro-Beijing lawmakers during a meeting in Hong Kong, May 11, 2019.
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Hong Kong’s legislative assembly descended into chaos Saturday as lawmakers for and against controversial amendments to the territory’s extradition law clashed over access to the chamber.
Tempers boiled over in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council on May 11, 2019.
This brawl left one person in hospital pro-democracy lawmakers scuffled with those loyal to Beijing, over legal amendments that would extend China’s powers over the former British colony, Hong Kong. Trying to enact changes to its extradition law, that would allow
people accused of a crime including foreigners to be extradited from the city to countries without formal extradition agreements including mainland China,
Its opponents fear the law would erode rights and legal protections in the city, which is supposed to enjoy freedoms that were guaranteed when it returned to Chinese rule, in 1997.
On May 11, 2019 the pro-democracy lawmakers and the pro
Beijing majority tried to hold separate hearings on the bill, but it ended in chaos the extradition bill is proving highly contentious and has sparked protests around the city.
The US weighed into the controversy this week. A Congressional Commission said the law could extend China’s,”coercive reach” and create serious risks for US national security and economic interest. In Hong Kong China rejected the report saying, Hong Kong affairs are an internal matter.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said the amendments must be passed to close a “loophole” under which the government has been unable to extradite a Hong Kong man, Chan Tong-kai, accused of killing his girlfriend in Taiwan last year.
Lam was chosen in 2017 from among a slate of candidates approved by Beijing and elected by a 1,200-member pro-China electoral body.
However, self-governing Taiwan has firmly ruled out signing any extradition agreement with Hong Kong unless it is treated as an equal, a condition Beijing, which claims the island as its own territory, is certain to reject. That would appear to undermine one of the government’s major justifications for the amendments.
Taiwanese officials have also warned that Taiwanese detained in Hong Kong could be sent to China for their political activities if the amendments are passed. A Taiwanese activist, Lee Ming-che, is currently serving a five-year sentence in China after being convicted by a Chinese court in November 2017 on charges of subverting state power for holding online political lectures and helping the families of jailed Chinese dissidents.
Lee disappeared into the custody of the security services in March 2017 after crossing into China from Macau to meet with a friend. His arrest was seen as a sign the ruling party intends to extend its intolerance of criticism even outside its borders.
The Hong Kong government will continue to liaise with Taiwan over the homicide case, Cheung said.