Hong Kong’s legislature on Wednesday formally killed the extradition bill that sparked four months of anti-government protests — on the same day that the murder suspect at the center of this issue was released from jail in Hong Kong and said he plans to turn himself in to Taiwanese authorities.

But protesters and opposition legislators say this is a small concession, and won’t lead them to back down from their five demands of Hong Kong’s government.

Twenty-year-old Chan Tong-kai inadvertently set off four months of anti-government protests in his hometown, Hong Kong, when he violently killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan last year. The semi-autonomous Chinese city cited his case, in February, in proposing legislation that would allow Hongkongers like Chan to be extradited to China for trial.

That lit a fire in this densely populated city, which since its handover from British rule back to China in 1997 was allowed by Beijing to operate under a “One Country, Two Systems” agreement. This proposed extradition bill, many residents felt, was a step too far towards Beijing.

And so the protests started in June, and violent clashes ensued between protesters and police. And the demands morphed into something much bigger than this piece of legislation.

The city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, suspended the bill in June, but the demonstrations continued, with protesters in this leaderless movement shaping five demands to their government. Those include universal suffrage, an investigation of police violence during the protests, amnesties for protesters and the full, official withdrawal of the  extradition bill.

Source : VOA