Hong Kong Protest Live Updates: Leader Pledges to Listen More

Police beat back protesters to stop them from disrupting a ceremony

Hundreds of riot police officers with helmets and shields used batons and pepper spray to push back protesters who tried to march to the site of an annual ceremony on Monday morning marking the 22nd anniversary of the territory’s return to China from Britain.

Thousands of protesters, dressed in black, with some wearing helmets and face masks, had occupied roads around Hong Kong’s legislature early Monday. They barricaded streets and marched as they sought to disrupt a morning ceremony at the city’s convention center that was attended by the Hong Kong’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, and other top officials.

Some protesters tried to charge by pushing steel barricades at the police while others inched forward under the cover of open umbrellas. They were stopped by officers who struck them with batons and doused them with pepper spray. The police warned that anyone who sought to breach their cordon would be arrested.

The turnout of protesters on Monday morning was among the largest efforts to disrupt the Hong Kong government’s most important annual political event.

“It should be a celebration, but because of the situation of Hong Kong, I think most of the Hong Kong people are in no mood to celebrate,” Lam Cheuk-ting, a pro-democracy lawmaker who joined the protesters, said of the July 1 holiday. “We urge Carrie Lam to step down as soon as possible, because she has refused to listen to the Hong Kong people for so long.”

Huge crowds of demonstrators have taken to Hong Kong’s streets in the past several weeks, protesting a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China. Beyond the opposition to the bill, the protests have been a dramatic expression of the deepening anxiety many in Hong Kong feel about the erosion of the civil liberties that set the city apart from the rest of China.

In one measure of that anxiety, a University of Hong Kong survey released last week showed that more than half the city’s residents held a negative view of the central government’s policies regarding Hong Kong, compared with less than a quarter who had a positive assessment. The university’s public opinion research center, which conducted the survey, said the appraisal was the most negative since 1999.

The city’s embattled leader promised to be “more open and accommodating.”

In a speech, Mrs. Lam, the city’s top local official, sought to strike a conciliatory note, pledging that she and her government would be more responsive to public sentiment. The chief executive had earlier been criticized for insisting on pushing the unpopular legislation through despite an intense public outcry.

“I will learn the lesson and ensure that the government’s future work will be closer and more responsive to the aspirations, sentiments and opinions of the community,” Mrs. Lam said at an official ceremony commemorating the handover anniversary. “The first and most basic step to take is to change the government’s style of governance to make it more open and accommodating.”

Mrs. Lam said she would make more time to meet with people from different political backgrounds and reach out to the city’s youth. She said that Hong Kong’s economy could feel the repercussions of a protracted trade war between the United States and China and urged Hong Kong residents to work with the government on managing the impact of the trade dispute and addressing the housing shortage and other issues.

Mrs. Lam said she and her government would “double our efforts to restore people’s confidence and get Hong Kong off to a new start.”

She and other officials, who arrived at the site of by ferry to avoid roads blocked by protesters, watched a flag-raising ceremony on a video display from inside a convention center where the event had been moved, the government said, to avoid rain. Helicopters flying the flags of Hong Kong and China flew around the island.

During Mrs. Lam’s speech, Helena Wong, an opposition lawmaker who attended the ceremony, shouted calls for the chief executive to resign and for the extradition bill to be withdrawn. Security guards quickly removed her from the room.

There were signs that the government had scaled back Monday’s ceremony because of the protests. Last week, officials canceled the attendance of students and uniformed youth groups at the ceremony, citing concerns for their safety.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” formulation that promised to maintain for 50 years Hong Kong’s own political and economic systems, including civil liberties that the ruling Chinese Communist Party denies to citizens on the mainland.

The broad public anger has already forced Mrs. Lam to suspend the proposed legislation, but demonstrators want it to be fully withdrawn and have also turned their scrutiny on the police, whom they say acted with excessive force in dispersing a June 12 protest. A march was planned for later in the day that pro-democracy organizers said was expected to draw a large turnout.

Tens of thousands rally in support of police after protests

Even as many in Hong Kong have denounced the police for its use of force on demonstrators last month, others have defended the police.

On Sunday, about 165,000 people attended a rally in support of the police, according to organizers, with some holding signs praising the Hong Kong police as the “best in Asia.”

The police force came under criticism for using tear gas, rubber bullets and beanbag rounds to disperse a demonstration on June 12.

On two occasions since, hundreds, or as many as thousands, of mostly young protesters have surrounded the police headquarters for hours, barricading entrances and defacing walls.

Mrs. Lam’s deputy, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung, sought to ease tensions and assuage the protesters on Sunday by saying that the government would now “listen to criticism with humility.”

In a post on his official blog, Mr. Cheung said the government would lose its “paternalistic mind-set” and pay greater attention to the youth, who have been a major force behind the recent protests.

A dock for the Chinese military drew protests

In recent days, some protesters have also turned their attention to the Hong Kong government’s long-planned move to rezone a 160-yard strip of a public waterfront as a dock for the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, which has maintained a largely symbolic presence in the territory.

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Friday night near the waterfront in Central, the business and political center on the northern edge of Hong Kong Island, to oppose the transfer of the land to the Chinese army, which came into effect at midnight on Saturday.

“Return my harbor-front, stop ceding our land!” the demonstrators chanted.

China and Britain agreed in 1994 that the dock and four other buildings should be given to the Hong Kong garrison of the People’s Liberation Army. The dock was the last military facility to be handed over and the government has said it had to do so for defense reasons. Critics say it breaks up a core part of the waterfront, a scenic space that is well-used by the public.

The transfer process began in 2013, when the government applied for the strip of waterfront to be rezoned for military use. But activists opposed to the transfer have found new support from the protest movement against the extradition bill.

Experts say police used excessive force on protesters in June.

The New York Times reviewed hundreds of videos and photos posted online by witnesses, along with submissions to our WhatsApp tip line, to assess whether the Hong Kong police used excessive force. Experts at Amnesty International, a human rights group, helped examine the images. We spoke to specialists in crowd control and interviewed more than two dozen protesters.

The videos show protesters being beaten by police officers, shot with riot-control ammunition, dragged on the ground and hit with tear gas during large-scale confrontations on June 12 near Hong Kong’s government headquarters. Their injuries included bruised ribs, broken fingers and respiratory problems.

The authorities began to use force after a small group of protesters threw bricks, bottles and umbrellas at officers and tried to push through rings of heavily armored police.

But the protests were largely peaceful, and human rights groups have denounced the actions of the police as excessive and illegal. Hong Kong officials say the police officers acted with restraint.

Protesters have adopted new tactics since a 2014 movement failed.

For weeks, protesters in Hong Kong have organized demonstrations that are not only larger but also arguably more effective than the Umbrella Movement of 2014, when demonstrators blocked major roadways for weeks in a failed campaign for more open elections.

This time, the protesters have more concrete demands and are also adopting new tactics. Young protesters have blocked roads and disrupted government services in response to anonymous calls in encrypted chat apps and online forums. Others have raised money online to pay for an international advertising campaign, including in The New York Times.

Some of the recent protests have been conventional, like a rally on Wednesday night that was organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group. But a distinctive feature of this year’s movement is that it has also been somewhat leaderless. Decisions on when, where and how to protest have often been made collectively on social media platforms where users are anonymous and details are worked out through likes and so-called upvotes.

Tiffany May, Katherine Li, Javier Hernandez, Austin Ramzy, Gillian Wong and Ezra Cheung contributed reporting.