Hong Kong protests enter fifth day as city’s leader defends police violence against her ‘children’

Clashes between protesters and police continued in Hong Kong on Thursday as the worst unrest in decades kept some government offices shut and again prevented a debate taking place on the extradition bill at the centre of the crisis.

A massive clean-up operation began to sort through the debris from Wednesday’s violent scenes, in which police opened fire on tens of thousands of protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets, injuring at least 72 people.

And outside the city’s legislature, the epicentre of the clashes, protest numbers again swelled to the thousands as at one stage demonstrators rushed to stop police from removing supplies of face masks and food.      

The extradition bill, which will cover Hong Kong residents and foreign and Chinese nationals living or travelling through the city, has sparked concerns it may threaten the rule of law that underpins Hong Kong’s international financial status.

The legislature remained closed, with the council issuing a notice that the meeting to discuss the bill would not be held on Thursday.

“We will be back when, and if, it comes back for discussion again,” said protester Stephen Chan, a 20-year old university student. “We just want to preserve our energy now.”

Authorities have shut government offices in the financial district for the rest of the week after some of the worst violence in Hong Kong since Britain handed it back to Chinese rule in 1997.

Hong Kong’s China-backed chief executive Carrie Lam condemned the violence late on Wednesday and urged a swift restoration of order.

In an interview, she compared the city’s youth to her own children and implied that she was being a strict leader for their own good.

While acknowledging the controversy, Ms Lam has refused to postpone or withdraw the bill, which she and her officials say is necessary to plug “loopholes” that allow the city to be a haven for criminals wanted on the mainland.

In an impromptu media conference in the legislature, opposition politicians strongly criticised the government’s heavy-handed police response.

“We are not a haven for criminals, but we have become a haven of violent police. Firing at our children? None of the former chief executives dared to do that,” said Fernando Cheung.

“But ‘mother Carrie Lam’ did it. What kind of mother is she? I have never seen such an evil-hearted mother.”

Beijing continues to support Ms Lam and push for the change to the law. The encrypted messaging app Telegram, often used by activists to evade surveillance, said it was subject to a massive “state actor-sized attack” from IP addresses in China as the protests in Hong Kong unfolded.

In editorials on Thursday, Chinese state media criticised the protests, saying they were “hammering” Hong Kong’s reputation.

“It is lawlessness that will hurt Hong Kong, not the proposed amendments to its fugitive law,” said the English-language China Daily.

Additional reporting by agencies