Pro-establishment lawmaker Priscilla Leung was hounded up and down a street by a crowd of shouting protesters as she tried to leave a press conference at the Legislative Council at around 1pm today.
Leung, a barrister and member of the second largest pro-establishment party in Hong Kong, joined other representatives from the legal sector at the LegCo today to announce a petition condemning the unruly anti-extradition protest on July 1 that saw aggressive demonstrators force their way into the parliament and deface the legislative chamber.
The petition expressed disapproval at the protest — which “caused damages and insulted the Legislative Council” — and support for the police’s efforts to arrest those responsible and to maintain public order.
As Leung was leaving the scene, however, she was mobbed by hecklers insisting she answer to anti-extradition protesters’s demands.
A video posted by inmediahk on Facebook starts in media res with Leung angrily asking one of the protesters “are you a Chinese citizen?”, only to be loudly shouted down.
When she tries to leave, however, the protesters follow her down Lung Wui Road in a clamoring pack, echoing previous protests’ demands for an independent committee to look into police’s use of force at previous demonstrations and for Chief Executive Carrie Lam to step down.
When Leung at one point turns to again question whether the protesters “understand the law” and are “Chinese citizens,” protesters fire back that they are “Hongkongers,” asking Leung, “What makes you a representative of Hongkongers?”.
Protesters even went so far as to question Leung’s religious beliefs, asking if she was truly a Christian.
“The Bible said to act justly and to love mercy — how can you say you are a Christian? Who is your God?” demanded Figo Chan, who is one of the conveners of the Civil Human Rights Front, the group that organized massive protests against Hong Kong’s controversial extradition bill.
At one point, Leung tries to escape the situation by hopping into a waiting taxi, only to immediately get back out after the cab refused to budge (hey, we’ve all been there).
“You guys scared him!” she shouted as she stepped back onto the street.
Leung was eventually forced to do an about-face, returning to Citic Tower, but protesters refused to give up the chase. She finally retreated to the LegCo building itself, which is closed to the public following the damage caused on July 1.
Leung has been a vocal supporter of the extradition bill, which has stoked widespread fears that Hongkongers could be left at the mercy of the mainland’s politicized court system.
Those fears mobilized the largest protests Hong Kong has ever seen, with anger at the government’s refusal to fully scrap the bill — it is currently only suspended — boiling over on Monday night with demonstrators’ storming of the LegCo.
Protesters broke windows, pried open security shutters, ripped out landscaping, tore down fencing, and spray painted graffiti in parliamentary chamber itself, with LegCo President Andrew Leung estimating the damage to be in the range of HK$60 million.
