Hong Kong backs off and announces suspension of controversial extradition bill to China

HONG KONG.- The Government of

Hong Kong

canceled today and announced the suspension of the controversial draft law on extradition to the United States.

China

. "The government has decided to suspend the legislative amendment procedure, to reactivate our communication with all sectors of society, to work more (…) and to listen to different points of view," he said. said Carrie Lam, head of government, press conference.

This announcement represents a setback for the Hong Kong government in the face of mbadive protest protests. However, shortly after the publication of the decision, opponents of the law badured that they would maintain the planned mobilization tomorrow to lobby for the final suspension of the reform.

The protracted bill, which had been proposed in February and whose final vote was scheduled for July, would allow the Chief Executive and the Hong Kong courts to process extradition requests from jurisdictions without prior agreement. – especially China and Taiwan. and without legislative oversight.

"We must tell the government that the people of Hong Kong will persist and hold its protests until the executive abolishes the law," Jimmy Sham of the Civil Rights Front told reporters.

The rejection of the project brings together very different sectors of the population, including lawyers, influential legal organizations, business leaders, chambers of commerce, journalists, activists and Western diplomats.

The violence has taken hold this week of the opulent streets of Hong Kong, the luxurious financial center that has seen the biggest riots in recent history: tens of thousands of people dressed in black have invaded the streets against the streets. addition and struck the rigor of the riot police, who dispersed them with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Today, at a press conference, the Director General announced the suspension of the bill and said that no date was set for reintroducing it. "The Council will stop working on the bill until we have finished our explanations and heard the opinions" on this issue, he said. "We do not intend to set a deadline for this work," he added.

According to Lam, the extradition law was necessary to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a "criminal refuge", but admitted that the government had underestimated the public reaction. "I deeply regret that the shortcomings of our work and other factors have caused significant controversy and conflict within society after the relatively quiet period of the last two years," he said.

Emergency meeting

According to
Morning of South ChinaCarrie Lam held an emergency meeting with her advisers last night, while Chinese officials also met in neighboring Shenzhen to try to find a way out of the crisis.

"Should not we rebadure citizens, I think we should postpone a little [el proyecto de ley] This is not a bad thing (…), "said a proPekin parliamentarian yesterday, but other parliamentarians closely linked to China had warned Lam to give in to protesters in order to avoid that "Hong Kong is ungovernable".

For Beijing, concerned about the slowdown in its economy due to trade tensions with

United States

the demonstrations in the old colony were unfounded, a few months after the celebrations in October of the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China.

This commemoration will serve to illustrate the power of the ubiquitous president

Xi Jinping

, whose "thought" entered the Chinese constitution at the end of 2017, becoming the equivalent of the founder of the communist dynasty, Mao Tse-tung.

AFP Agency