Hong Kong’s legislative assembly descended into chaos yesterday as lawmakers for and against amendments to the territory’s extradition law clashed over access to the chamber.
At least one lawmaker was taken from the chamber on a gurney after apparently fainting during the morning melee, in which legislators pushed and shoved each other on the floor, amid seats and tables and in an adjoining hallway.
The amendments have been widely criticized as eroding the semi-autonomous Chinese territory’s judicial independence by making it easier to send criminal suspects to mainland China, where they could face vague national security charges and unfair trials.
Photo: AP
Under the “one country, two systems” framework, Hong Kong was guaranteed the right to retain its own social, legal and political systems for 50 years following its handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
However, the Chinese Communist Party has been seen as increasingly reneging on that agreement by forcing through unpopular legal changes.
Legislators in the pro-Beijing camp attempted to seat Abraham Razack (石禮謙), also known as Abraham Shek, who had been named earlier in the week through another committee and a contested interpretation of council rules to replace pro-democrat James To (涂謹申) as head of the Bills Committee.
Photo: AP
To had stalled passage of the legislation over two sessions and Razack was seen as the best chance to push it through before the July recess.
However, pro-democracy legislators continued to claim that To was the legitimate chief of the committee guiding discussion of the proposed new law.
They and their opponents had scheduled rival meetings on the same topic in the same Legislative Council meeting room yesterday, starting just 30 minutes apart.
The rival committees both claimed to be in charge of the same process of scrutinizing the new law before deciding on whether to vote on it.
At one point, Wu Chi-wai (胡志偉), the Democratic Party chairman who tried to stop Shek from presiding over the meeting, shouted at him, saying: “Don’t be a sinner for a thousand years! Don’t sell out Hong Kong.”
The legislator removed by paramedics was identified as Gary Fan Kwok-wai (範國威) of the Neo Democrats.
The amendments expand the scope for the transfer of criminal suspects to China and remove the legislature’s right to scrutinize individual extradition decisions filed by Hong Kong’s chief executive.
They could also open the way for further measures to erode Hong Kong’s civil liberties, including the passage of anti-subversion legislation that has been strongly opposed by many.
Yesterday’s legislative scuffle came weeks after a Hong Kong court handed down prison sentences of up to 16 months to eight leaders of massive 2014 pro-democracy protests on public nuisance charges.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS