HONG KONG: Thousands of Hong Kongers held rallies on Friday night, rejecting calls by the city’s pro-Beijing leader to end their movement as the finance hub braces for another weekend of clashes, including a plan to disrupt the airport.
Police fired brief volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets against a few hundred protesters who had gathered outside a police station in Mongkok district. But a second, much larger rally in the heart of the city’s commercial district remained peaceful.
Millions of pro-democracy supporters have taken to Hong Kong’s streets for the past three months in the biggest challenge to China’s rule since the city’s handover from Britain in 1997.
On Wednesday, the city’s unelected pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam surprised many by announcing she was scrapping a hugely unpopular extradition law that sparked the huge and sometimes violent rallies, a key demand of protesters that she and Beijing had previously refused to budge on.
The crowds are expected to swell into the night, as the Asian financial hub braces for weekend demonstrations aiming to disrupt transport links to the airport after Lam’s withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill failed to appease some activists.
The airport announced that only passengers with tickets would be allowed to use the Airport Express train service on Saturday, boarding in downtown Hong Kong. The train would not stop en route, on the Kowloon peninsula. Bus services could also be hit, it said.
The measures are aimed at avoiding the chaos of last weekend, when protesters blocked airport approach roads, threw debris on the train track and trashed the MTR subway station in the nearby new town of Tung Chung in running clashes with police.
“The four actions are aimed at putting one step forward in helping Hong Kong to get out of the dilemma,” Lam told reporters during a trip to China’s southern region of Guangxi. “We can’t stop the violence immediately.”
Lam on Wednesday withdrew a controversial extradition bill that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial in courts controlled by its ruling Communist Party and announced three other measures to help ease the crisis, including a dialogue with the people.
Global credit rating agency Fitch Ratings on Friday downgraded Hong Kong’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to “AA” from “AA+”. Fitch said it expects that public discontent is likely to persist despite the concessions to certain protester demands.
Demonstrations, sometimes violent, have gripped the former British colony for three months, at times paralysing parts of the city amid running street battles between protesters and police whose violence has drawn international attention.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue of Hong Kong with Chinese premier Li Keqiang in Beijing, saying a peaceful solution was needed.
“I stressed that the rights and freedoms for (Hong Kong) citizens have to be granted,” Merkel said.
Li told a news conference with Merkel “the Chinese government unswervingly safeguards ‘one country, two systems’ and ‘Hong Kong people govern Hong Kong people’”.
Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” formula which guarantees freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including an independent judiciary and the right to protests — hence people’s anger at the extradition bill.
Many Hong Kong residents fear Beijing is eroding that autonomy.
China denies the accusation of meddling and says Hong Kong is its internal affair. It has denounced the protests, warning of the damage to the economy and the possible use of force to quell the unrest.
Beijing supported the territory’s government “to end the violence and chaos in accordance with the law, to return to order, which is to safeguard Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability”, Li added.
— AFP
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