Eric Sautedé
When on September 4 Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam finally decided to officially “withdraw” the Extradition Bill, the overall reaction in the pro-democracy camp was to say that the move came “too late” and amounted to “too little”.
At the time I felt that the government’s announcement was rather a substantial achievement to be indeed credited to the ever-evolving “Be water” movement. At long last a political response of sort was somehow and somewhat addressing a political challenge that had been dragging for far too long. How could that not be an achievement, far beyond the “suspension” of the Bill on June 15 or any claim the Bill was “dead” on July 9? Neither the temporary shelving nor the burial of this piece of legislation had ever been on the list of demands formulated by the demonstrators — moderates and radicals alike — but the “withdrawal” had been the core, and until June 12 the only demand of the protestors. So yes, politics was back, especially after all the fantasies fueled by saber rattling moves across the border and ill-designed martial video clips hastily cooked up by Communist propaganda.
In my mind, the rebuttal was meant to be temporary, and after a period of adjustment during which things would turn worse before getting better — and how could it be otherwise after three months of resolute and unabated fight — the path for a more rational and possibly peaceful settlement would start to shine again. Things would take time and trust had to be rebuilt: a survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in early September was showing that about 69% of the people did not trust either the government or the police, and if about the same proportion of people believed that the principle of non-violent action should be upheld, still 56% considered that violent action was understandable if the government failed to respond to large-scale peaceful demonstrations. Moreover, almost 71% still considered that the demand to set up an independent commission of enquiry looking into police violence and other incidents was a requirement.
More than one month after the announcement of the withdrawal which will be effective only when the LegCo reconvene next week, are we finally seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel? Clearly not. While professing to initiate a dialogue, Carrie Lam made it clear that there would be no other concession, and that contradictory move immediately gave rise to a new show of unity among the protesters, best encapsulated by the defiant slogan “Five demands, not one less”. A butchered 2-hour encounter with district councilors supposed to kickstart a dialogue on September 18 turned into disarray when only 98 out of 458 councilors decided to show up. A subsequent community dialogue with 130 citizens held at Queen Elizabeth Stadium on September 26 turned into a real agony for the Chief executive and her principal officials when participants mostly vented their frustration and anger at the inability of the government to resolve the crisis.
Following further defiance of infuriated and ever younger protesters on October 1, the “Chief Executive in council” decided to invoke the Emergency Regulations Ordinance on October 4 to ban masks at unauthorized protests. The problem is, supposedly because of security concerns, that most marches have not been authorized since August 18, meaning that people cannot even vote with their feet anymore, as marches are banned, the MTR closed at sensitive times and the police being given excessive leeway in the interpretation of the new ban. Things will get worse before they will worsen even more!
Meanwhile in Macao, a decision rendered by the Court of Final Appeal on September 27 states that the Macao police was right to forbid demonstrations in Praça do Tap Seac and da Amizade aimed at denouncing police violence in Hong Kong on the basis that publicly allowing these to happen would have amounted to interfering with the internal affairs of the Hong Kong SAR, and thus violating the Macao Basic Law. As clearly stated by lawyer Jorge Menezes, with this decision, freedom of assembly and freedom of expression are all but history in Macao, despite them also being entrenched in the Basic Law. Will freedom of conscience be next?
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