Just keep in mind the 4 other demands

1) Direct elections
2) Independent inquiry to investigate police
3) Retract Riot designation
4) Release protestors and clear their charges

Does anyone with common sense see how this is not gonna work?

1) Hong Kong isn't going to get direct elections for CE. Its just not going to happen. Come 2047 July 1st that would be gone anyways. Just to note, Pre-97 the Governor was not elected either.

2) Sure, get lawyers, judges and even ICAC involved. It's just a massive shitshow with many moving parts, dragged out for years (YVR Taser incident almost 3 years). 5 years down the road, would this even matter?

3) If its not a riot, what is it? A peaceful protest that involves some combination of destroying MTR stations and breaking windows at police stations/vehicles/dorms). Way to gain sympathy from undecided folks.

4) Vandalizing a MTR station (spraying the security cameras, hammering out the octopus card readers, pouring soda onto the vending machines, breaking the windows) is a crime. You think just because you have the sympathy and air-time of foreign press its ok to do that?

The whole original protest was about the extradition treaty (which I highly suggest everyone read up) and now that it's "off the table", there's really no justification to continue the MTR incidents, Airport incidents, or protests outside police stations. Yet it continues. There's only 1 way this ends and I'm afraid it won't be pretty

I agree to an extent your points on 1,3 and 4, but I think the highest chance for HKers to fight for now is an ICC. Majority of HKers want to see justice for the police brutality over the past 2 months, and I think the ICC is the only mechanism to ease the tension on this end.

it's crazy how the delay of saying one word (withdrawn), has caused such turmoil and impact to a city within a couple of weeks.

Valid points but people won't stop the protest until all 5 are met (which I can't see happening)

Does anyone know why the protesters are picky about the June 12 as not being a riot? Aside from trying to get sympathy votes?

The vandalism is not going to stop, as much as it has never been justified, i do wnat to believe it's the 1% of the shit stirrers (yet getting 99% of our social media screen time) who are doing this.

Your post is getting a lot of support from "the usuals" so I'll address the points
Universal suffrage is promised in the constitution as an "eventual goal", at least after being nominated by a "nomination committee"

"come 2047" do you think China will just flip a switch and all of a sudden everything will be fine? HK will just get absorbed by Shenzen? Think again. Also, who knows what China (or Earth) will be by then.

The thing is, people don't want HK to be a rotten shithole from now until 2047 anyway. Give them what they're promised.
Would it matter that peolpe committing crimes are charged with crimes? I honestly don't really know how to address such a crazy statement. I guess I can point out that the police were once trusted and respected. HK had the cleanest police force for decades. Then it all changed in 2014. And now you think "it doesn't matter" that they can get away with this shit?

If this was the first thing I'd read in your post, I would have just clicked fail and stopped at that LUL
They thing is, the June 12 protest was never a riot. It was a peaceful protest that the police broke up with tear gas, and pepper spray, and started arresting people as rioters. They later backed down from that declaration, but not really officially. Therefore, none of the protesters should be charged with rioting. This is a demand that the government doesn't even really need to address. If the court system is still fair, most of the protesters who were arrested on that day will have charges dropped.

Nobody smashed any windows or MTR stations that day, so I don't even know what you're talking about there.
This is the one demand that I think should be reworded in some way. Certainly some of the 1000+ protesters who were arrested were committing crimes that would hold up in court. Likely the majority of them aren't even going to be prosecuted. I don't know about the idea of a blanket release.

Hope this clears things up for you... You seem to be a bit confused on the facts, and COMPLETELY off base with letting police get away with physical, sexual assault and all sorts of other things. They need to be more accountable than anyone else. Sometimes an arrest can get rough, but you don't just wantonly break wrists, necks, faces, block paramedics, shoot people in the face with bags, fire tear gas indoors, shove people down escalators and stairs without arresting, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc
The original protest STARTED with the extradition bill. This is on top of all the other grievances that have been building up. HKers have successfully blocked some bills you wouldn't belive existed. For instance, being arrested for not standing for the national anthem, or adding brainwashing "national education" as compulsory programs in elementary schools. Don't even get fucking started on Article 23, which would make it illegal to criticize china.

So add that all up, and people wanted to put a stop to the bill. 1 million people marched that day (500K marched in 2003 against article 23). But nothing, they were going to put it through anyway. So protesters had to try blocking it by blockading the legco from happening (which they successfully did)

Then the cops went fucking nuts. I don't have to go through what they did on June 12. You can go read this thread.

And then you have the governments reactions to this, which did nothing but provoke the people to fight more. Then came the 2 million person march. And so on.

So yeah, this started with the extradition bill, but it basically turned into "well we have to start fighting some time, it might as well be now"

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...tion-bill-riot

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion...swer-holds-key

These two SCMP offers a pretty good explanation on the June 12 issue. In short, if they label the event of June 12 or anyone after as a riot, then anyone arrested, even if they were just participating in the group will tougher and longer jail sentences.

Of all the black cops videos that I have seen, this is absolutely the most disgusting one that I have watched to date:


Take note of the following:

1) at 9 sec mark: Mr. Black Cop purposely threw the left detainee's phone on the ground (in attempt to break it)

2) at 25 sec mark: randomly grapped someone else's respiratory mask and put it by the left detainee's side -- you can see at 3 sec mark, the mask fell to the ground from the other group's circle

3) starting at 37 sec mark: after zip-tying the left detainee, Mr. Black Cop grabbed the left detainee's hand, and tried multiple times to get the left detainee's skin and finger prints on the mask that came from the right detainee's side

Very plain and simple, #1 is vadalism -- committed by the police, and possibly deliberate and intentional destruction of evidence as well. At that point in the video, the protester has already been successfully arrested. The only thing a cop is supposed to do at that point is to take him back to the station, and maybe try to coax a statement out of him on site. Anything else beyond that, it is unnecessary and beyond the police code.

#2 is part of the falsification of evidence.

#3 is the ugliest and blantant falsificaiton of evidence. Plain and simple, this is obstruction of justice!

Going back to jackmeister's points, the establishment of an independent commission to not just investigate the police, but to investigate the whole incident, is crucial to the ongoing stability of Hong Kong. There is an overwhelming amount of irrefutable evidence that the police have "crossed the line". For Hong Kong (or any livable city, really), it is crucial that people -- residents and foreigners alike -- can trust the police to maintain law and order. Just as importantly, the district courts are clearly biased against protesters. Currently, this means no sane person can trust the Hong Kong police or its district courts. The purpose of the independent commission is to uncover the truth, set out the bar where prosections should take place, and recommend the courts / justice minister to follow through with it. When an independent investigation report is produced and its recommendations followed, that is how Hong Kong can re-establish the trust in its judicial system and in the police force. Until that happens, the Hong Kong police and justice system is only a slightly gentler and better version of what you see in China. If I were a foreign investor, I am going to see the "rule of law" that Hong Kong is running, turn around and move all my HQs to Singapore or something. Even for anyone on China's side, this is not something they want to see. Recall that China relies on Hong Kong for over 70% (or was it even higher?) its capital accquisitions.

You got some valid points on ur post; this is the one area hardest to solve. Not even going to talk about the vandalism done by protesters. Let's just talk arrests; 100% agree excessive force were used by police during some arrest.

Will an independent investigation group help? Sure????? What's going to happen is 3000 page report providing suggestions at best? Would there be arrests, cops getting convicted, highly unlikely.

Logistically, how does one even start to investigate? Pick a day (June 12), then a time (at night between 8-10 PM), then a location (some road), and then narrow down the cops involved? Dangggg.

Anyone know the last few independent investigations against RCMP / VPD in the recent years (aside from the Dziekański & maybe canucks riots)?

Dude,

You need to review your homework before posting.

An independent commision was put together in 2012 (in Hong Kong) to investigate the marine disaster that took place near Lamma Island. The results were damning, and an assistant chief at the Marine department was deemed to be criminally neglegent. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison (which after 5 months, had successfully appealed and was released).

Many believe this is precisely the HKPD is so against an independent commission -- because their own kind would be held accountable to for the deaths. On the other hand, the general public accepted the consequences even though they may still feel

This is for people who think an inquiry is "not worth the trouble" or whatever nonsense I thought I read here. When the police have no concern of being accountable for their actions, they do things like this. From breaking wrists on purpose, stepping on faces and hands and other body parts on detained citizens, smashing peoples' phones, or flat out planting evidence. And they do all this knowing they're being recorded.

But yeah, making them accountable is "too much trouble". This is the kind of law enforcement HK needs. Native citizens love it, and foreign citizens/investors can't wait to put their lives and money there.

I wonder if the people who are doing pro china protest here realize the irony of this...

I said in this thread before that they don't seem to have any sense of irony. I've seen people say that there's no actual word for for the concept in Chinese, though I'm not sure how true that is...

Here's the COI of the Lamma incident. https://www.gov.hk/en/theme/coi-lamm...COI_Report.pdf

The COI will set a Terms of Reference to stipulate if there was any police brutality. The COI is a powerful document that can be used to prosecute any officers that were ID'ed to have taken part in any police brutality cases.

And I keep hearing pro-chinese side saying "a report of XXXXX pages will take forever! Cops won't get prosecuted anyways". What a lame excuse.

With regard to holding the police to account for their actions, I think Carrie lam has to follow thru with that, and she can't make China as being an excuse of her hands being tied. Even if it takes, years, and is a "waste of time" as some would think, it doesn't matter, there's so much video evidence that it shouldn't be too hard anyway

I hope u understand that comparison is in jest... Cuz actual protests can, and have gotten much more lively inside China lol

Just google up Dalian protests etc, ull even get protesters attacking riot police, just not to the severity as we've seen in hk

https://i.imgur.com/qN0LIrM.jpg


This is how they're arresting people now.. Surround the suspect who is not resisting, and bash their skull in with batons.

But yeah, holding them accountable would be "too much trouble" and not worth it right?

The future is bright, just keep your head down, and make that money.

Randomly clubbing people who are just standing against the wall


Not worth an inquiry though. Too many "moving parts" to do that

1 (and a teenager at that with NO weapons) vs 8 cops with batons.

https://twitter.com/lokinhei/status/...679f72e7e4%2F0

and then quickly asks MTR to shut the gate so they can hide evidence.

Excuse my ignorance, but why do people in HK not fight back with the way police are treating them? Like literally corner a few cops and kick the shit out of him, and use him as example?

Because if they do people will say: "If its not a riot, what is it? A peaceful protest that involves beating cops? You think just because you have the sympathy and air-time of foreign press its ok to do that? The whole original protest was about the extradition treaty (which I highly suggest everyone read up) and now that it's "off the table", there's really no justification to continue the MTR incidents, Airport incidents, or protests outside police stations."

Something like jackmeister's post

where can i read more about true democracy ever being promised to HK?

no Beijing isn't likely gonna flip a switch...we're already seeing the transition albeit a bit earlier than expected

27-28 years might be an entire generation but it's a relatively tiny fraction of time that HK was even governed by Great Britain

let's look back on the last 28 years: Berlin Wall already fell, USSR was already done...sure Taiwan was on its way to becoming fully democratic..9/11 in the west..EU was formed..Arab Spring...in the grand scheme it's not very long at all for major events to shape societies

let's say someone is 37 and their kids are 2-5, yeah HK is your home and all but let's say you're not the working poor and have skills/talent in your field, you know doom is relatively imminent and set in stone, why not look into getting out for the long term?


what's a few years if you're the one with the eye shot out wanting justice?

Article 45 of Hong Kong Basic Law (their constitution)

(italics are my text)

As for people "getting out for the long term" where do you expect people to go? It's not as easy to immigrate as you think. When Britain handed HK over to China, they unfortunately did not give HK people the right to remain British citizens and move to UK if they wanted to. They literally handed the people over to another country from their colony.

Some people have the means to leave, and certainly a lot will. Some people just don't want their home to be conquered by another country, so will stay and fight.

Ehh with this one... You see he was running from police and zig zagging thru the police who came over to assist, before being surrounded right?

That's resisting arrest

Sometimes I wonder if you're just here to troll me. Some of the things you say are inconceivably ignorant.

If you think that isn't a case of excessive force... oh god I want to say something negative, but I'll just fail you and move on. I am livid