HONG KONG: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday ruled out further concessions to the city’s pro-democracy movement ahead of her weekend visit to Beijing, despite a landslide election defeat for the government and a peaceful mass march.
The movement, which marked its six-month anniversary on Monday, was initially sparked by a now-abandoned attempt to allow extraditions to mainland China but has since morphed into a popular revolt against Beijing’s rule.
In a rare lull in police-protester clashes, around 800,000 people marched peacefully through the city’s streets Sunday, urging the government to respond to their five demands — which include an independent inquiry into the police, an amnesty for those arrested, and fully free elections.
An end to violence is something the city’s pro-Beijing leadership has insisted must be a precursor to meaningful dialogue — but in her weekly press conference on Tuesday, Lam refused to accept protesters’ demands further to the extradition bill’s withdrawal.
“If a particular demand requires us to deviate from the law... I could not agree to accept those demands simply for the purpose of reaching people’s aspirations.”
Lam argued that an amnesty for those arrested — more than 6,000 people since June, 40 percent of them students — would violate the spirit of the rule of law.
“How can we completely ignore the rule of law just to fulfill the demands ... So we have no way to make the response, but we are still willing to examine the social problems reflected by this incident in hope of relieving residents’ grievance,” she added.
Lam said would give a “full account” of what has happened in the city when she goes to Beijing on Saturday for her regular duty visit, which typically involves a meeting with President Xi Jinping.
In late November, the city’s pro-democracy camp won a landslide victory in local elections, which critics described as a referendum for the movement, but Lam and her government remained unrattled.
The movement has upended the semi-autonomous Chinese hub’s reputation for stability and blanketed its streets with unprecedented scenes of political violence.
Despite a lull in clashes in the past two weeks, tension bubbled under the surface as police defused two improvised mail bombs discovered near a school and seized firearms including a pistol during overnight raids.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam rules out protest concessions ahead of Beijing visit
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam rules out protest concessions ahead of Beijing visit
- In a rare lull in police-protester clashes, around 800,000 people marched peacefully through the city’s streets Sunday
- ‘How can we completely ignore the rule of law just to fulfill the demands’
Military intervention in Iran ‘not the preferred option’: French minister
- The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed”
PARIS: Military intervention in Iran, where authorities launched a deadly crackdown on protesters that killed thousands, is not France’s preferred option, its armed forces minister said on Sunday.
“I think we must support the Iranian people in any way we can,” Alice Rufo said on the political broadcast “Le Grand Jury.”
But “a military intervention is not the preferred option” for France, she said, adding it was “up to the Iranian people to rid themselves of this regime.”
Rufo lamented how hard it was to “document the crimes the Iranian regime has carried out against its population” due to an internet shutdown.
“The fate of the Iranian people belongs to Iranians, and it is not for us to choose their leaders,” said Rufo.
The son of Iran’s president, who is also a government adviser, has called for internet connectivity to be restored, warning that the more than two-week blackout there would exacerbate anti-government sentiment.
Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected president in 2024, said, “Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.”
“This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,” he wrote in a Telegram post that was later picked up by the IRNA news agency.
Such a risk, he said, was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored.
The younger Pezeshkian, a media adviser to the presidency, said he did not know when internet access would be restored.
He pointed to concerns about the “release of videos and images related to last week’s ‘protests that turned violent’” as a reason the internet remained cut off, but criticized the logic.
Quoting a Persian proverb, he posted “‘He whose account is clean has nothing to fear from scrutiny.’”
The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must
be addressed.”
He went on to say that “the release of films is something we will have to face sooner or later. Shutting down the internet won’t solve anything; it will just postpone the issue.”
