Hong Kong’s protests took a more physical turn Monday, with hundreds smashing their way into the Legislative Council building, ramming steel bars, poles and scaffolding against the glass doors — disrupting a ceremony celebrating the 1997 anniversary of Britain’s handover of the city-state to rule by the mainland.
The cause may justify the escalation, because without a change in direction, freedom in the city-state is doomed.
Protesters gained entrance to the building, storming the main chamber, destroying pictures and deploying graffiti slogans like “Carrie Lam step down,” “No extradition to China” and “Release the righteous.”
“The righteous” being protesters arrested in last month’s million-strong demonstrations that prompted Lam, the Beijing-tapped chief executive, to suspend her drive for a law to allow extradition to the mainland’s kangaroo courts.
Lam’s Communist Party overseers doubtless expect the bill to pass eventually, when public passions have eased. Beijing is determined to crush Hong Kong’s remaining independence, lest the taste for liberty spread.
Monday’s demonstrators left no doubt as to the future they prefer: They draped the city’s pre-handover flag, featuring the UK Union Jack in its upper-left-hand corner, on the podium where the Legislative Council president sits. In other words: We’d rather be part of the democratic West than owned by the dictators in Beijing.
The city remains a golden goose for the mainland, so the tanks are unlikely to roll in just yet. But the people of Hong Kong are left holding the line, and praying for some drastic change to derail the mainland’s plan to gradually bleed away their rights until not a drop of liberty remains.