Pro-democracy protesters have unfurled yet another enormous yellow banner bearing an anti-Carrie Lam slogan on a prominent hillside in Hong Kong, nearly seven months after the first such banner calling for the embattled leader to step down first appeared on the same rock face.
Apple Daily reports that police received a report that the banner — measuring one meter by 10 meters — was spotted hanging from Beacon Hill in Kowloon at 7:45am this morning.
The banner reads “Citizens mask their faces, Carrie Lam masks her heart,” a reference to a controversial ban on face masks introduced under a draconian emergency powers law in October, only to ruled unconstitutional by the High Court. The government had sought to reinstate the ban — aimed at curbing the city’s ongoing protests — while they appealed the High Court’s ruling, but they were shut down by the Appeal Court earlier this week.
Today’s banner certainly wasn’t the first political message to be splashed across the side of Beacon Hill.
In May, a banner reading “Carrie Lam, you better resign” was similarly draped from the hillside just as opposition to a controversial extradition bill was beginning to pick up steam. (The bill — which would have allowed renditions to the mainland — was ultimately withdrawn, but not before the opposition movement’s demands had snowballed beyond one single issue.)
In September, as the protest movement against the bill rolled on, protesters unfurled another banner calling for the police force to be disbanded amid accusations of brutality. And days before China’s National Day on Oct. 1, a black banner was also unfurled on the slope exhorting the public to “Celebrate your mom” — a pun on the Cantonese expression for “F**k your mom.”
The appearance of today’s yellow banner marks six months to the day since police first fired tear gas at largely peaceful anti-extradition bill protesters in Admiralty. Just days before, hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the bill, but the government nonetheless announced that a reading of the legislation would go ahead as planned.
The news prompted tens of thousands of Hongkongers to abandon work and classes to surround the Legislative Council to prevent lawmakers from holding the June 12 reading.
Police ultimately responded to isolated scuffles by attempting to disperse the entire crowd with volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets, setting off widespread public anger. The event was a watershed moment, galvanizing public opposition to the widely disliked bill into a surprisingly durable protest movement for broader reforms that still continues today.
Reader Interactions