Hundreds Demonstrate Against Extradition Bill

Hundreds of people rallied outside the Legislative Council building on Friday night, to protest against the government's proposed extradition law ahead of Saturday's bills committee meeting.

One protester, NGO worker Ip Kin-ching, said: "The number is not important. I think we need to get more people to demonstrate to the Hong Kong government that we mean this bill should not be passed."

Another protestor, Simon , who works in magazine publishing, said: "Carrie Lam, the CE, she's too much on the Beijing side. She needs to understand that she is basically representing all Hong Kong people and not Beijing.

Lam on Thursday denied claims that the mainland was deliberately left out of the fugitives ordinance when it was introduced in 1997, infuriating many pan-democrats.

Simon said: "I want to show, as a gweilo, we understand it [the bill] has to go back again. Very sad. That Lam was called a liar, to some extent the pan-democrats could maybe have used different words, but there is a certain truth to it, because she should not have said what she said."

The government wants to change the law so it can send suspects for trial in jurisdictions with which Hong Kong has no extradition agreement. These include the mainland, Taiwan and Macau.

However business leaders are among those who have expressed alarm over the extradition plans, with many critics saying they are particularly worried about people being surrendered to mainland authorities on trumped-up charges.