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<p>Carrie Lam's withdrawal is quite a farce and does not shift so
much, really. Many students go to school today wearing masks,
singing "Do you hear the people sing" over the playing of the
national anthem... Tactics, are indeed happening, all sides...</p>
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<p>From the citizen's press conference today at 9:00 pm:</p>
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<div class="im_message_text" dir="auto">FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE 4 September 2019<br>
<br>
<br>
“Five Demands, Not One Less”<br>
<br>
This Press Conference was urgently called in light of
Carrie Lam’s announcement that the withdrawal of the
Extradition Bill may be proposed at the Legislation
Council once its session resumes in October. Our
spokesperson made the speech below.<br>
<br>
“Despite what Carrie Lam has said earlier today, we
want the world to know that the Bill is still not
withdrawn - do not be fooled again. Carrie Lam stated
that the proposal for the Bill’s withdrawal will be
raised in the legislature, also known as LegCo.
However, LegCo will not be in session until October.
Even more alarmingly, LegCo is not elected by the Hong
Kong people and therefore consists mainly of
pro-Beijing legislators. The proposal to withdraw the
bill will almost certainly be blocked by these
legislators. Hong Kongers can see right through Carrie
Lam’s lies: she wants a way to shift her
responsibilities, so that when the proposal is
rejected by LegCo in October, she can say it is not
her fault and then legitimately proceed with passing
the bill. To our friends around the world, please do
not think this Government has backed down, because it
certainly has not. It is just seeking to create
confusion, attempting to distract and escape
accountability. Please don’t let them succeed.<br>
<br>
Even if the Bill were fully withdrawn, the documentary
“Winter on Fire” has this to say on the Ukraine’s
fight for freedom: “If we accept the government's
conditions, our friends who have sacrificed their
lives will not forgive us.'' The world will remember
that we made our Five Demands deafeningly clear by
storming into the Legislative Council - this was on
the 1st of July. Today is the 4th of September. It has
been more than two months before Carrie Lam finally
crawls out of her arrogant silence to respond to one,
and only one, of these demands: the withdrawal of the
Extradition Bill.<br>
<br>
The Citizens’ Press Conference would first like to
reiterate our insistence on the principle of “five
demands, not one less”. If you had scraped your knee,
applying a band aid onto your wound within the first
few hours would have been a quick fix. But if you
don’t do that, and even start smearing mud and rubbing
dirty fingers onto the wound, what used to be a small,
easily fixable wound would soon morph into first an
infection, then rotting flesh, and eventually either
amputation or death by sepsis.<br>
<br>
If Carrie Lam had withdrawn the Bill months ago that
may have been a quick fix, but applying a band aid
months afterwards onto rotting flesh will simply not
cut it. What used to be just one demand - the
withdrawal of the Bill - has now snowballed into five
demands because of the evil this Government has shown
towards its own people, and now, almost three months
on, the Five Demands have grown into an intimately
intertwined package. “We have one demand down but four
to go”: we will never settle for less.<br>
<br>
The anti-extradition movement might have been
triggered by the Extradition Bill, but it was only the
last straw on top of a haystack that was already on
the verge of burning. This very large haystack
includes all the systemic failures and brazen lies
this Government have always perpetrated: a demented
and shoot-to-kill police force, a white terror regime,
political censorship of corporates and the greedy jaws
of the Chinese Communist Party are just debts which
have been offloaded onto Hong Kongers within these
three short months. Does the Government honestly think
that the trauma, grievances and anguish they caused
could be so easily dismissed with two syllables?
Expecting the word “withdraw” to salvage all they have
caused is childish and tone-deaf at best.</div>
<div class="im_message_text" dir="auto">The fact that
the US Congress will resume within a few days, and
will continue with the reading of the Hong Kong Human
Rights and Democracy Act, has no doubt given the Hong
Kong Government a fierce kick up the backside - it is
certainly no coincidence that the Government has
decided to make such announcement at this particular
time. To this end, we are incredibly encouraged to see
that the impressive camaraderie between local
protestors and international efforts is indeed an
effective way to express our voices. That being said,
the Government has responded to just one of our five
demands: we have also demanded the Government to set
up an independent commission of inquiry, to release
pro-democracy protesters who have been arrested, to
withdraw the definition of our protests as “riots”, as
well as the dual universal suffrage. Until the day all
of these demands are met, Hong Kongers will not yield.
In fact, with a bleak and oppressive political future
ahead of us, Hong Kongers cannot afford to yield.<br>
<br>
According to a recent survey conducted by the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, the respondents acknowledging
the need of a fully independent investigation
committee (not part of HKPF’s IPCC), at 95.1%, is even
higher than that of the demand of withdrawing the
Extradition bill, at 85.9%. This is because
respondents are well aware that the IPCC possess no
independence and authority over thorough
investigations. We have seen the riot police beating
all of the train passengers on the 31st of August at
Prince Edward station indiscriminately, and Carrie
Lam’s proposal of adding two members to the IPCC
taskforce simply offers no help in light of
ever-intensifying police brutality. Mrs. Helen Yu
used to be a senior consultant for Carrie Lam’s
election campaign just two years ago, her previous
role has got us worried if she could ever been
neutral, notwithstanding Helen’s recent comments on
the movement, that she deemed a fully independent
investigation committee inappropriate in June. How
could Hong Kong citizens fully trust the impartiality
and neutrality of these two? <br>
<br>
What Carrie Lam has done so far, is too little, too
late. Carrie Lam stated in the recording leaked by
Reuters, that she estimated the number of violent
protesters to be 2000. By the end of her speech today,
she stressed that “Our foremost priority now is to end
violence, to safeguard the rule of law and to restore
order and safety in society. As such, the government
has to strictly enforce the law against all violent
and illegal acts”. <br>
<br>
We must ask Carrie Lam one urgent question, ‘when the
movement quietens down, is that when we should expect
mass arrests as an aftermath? ”<br>
<br>
We must also ask our fellow men and women, “with 1183
of us arrested, among them 67 charged with rioting, at
least 5 suicides for the cause, we have already paid a
heavy price. Will our deceased companions accept this
kind of - quote unquote - withdrawal? ”<br>
<br>
At the beginning, we might not see the light of hope.
Yet what we believe in is not to persevere in the
clear sight of hope, but to persevere so as to see the
light of hope. Hongkongers will not be satisfied with
a partial victory, and our thirst for freedom and
justice will not be quenched. “Five demands, not one
less” isn’t merely a slogan we repeatedly yell out of
our windows at 10 each and every night. This is THE
joint consensus, belief and principles of action by
which Hong Kongers abide and uphold. <br>
<br>
We look forward to the day when Hong Kongers are
finally freed from fear. Then, at this very venue, we
will take off our masks and meet each other for the
very first time. One day. <br>
<br>
Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our time.<br>
<br>
Five demands, not one less.<br>
<br>
Fight on and take care, fellow Hong Kongers.”</div>
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<div style="text-align:center">☞ </div>
<div style="text-align:center"><font size="2"><br>
</font></div>
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<div style="text-align:center"><font face="Courier New,
Courier, monospace"><span
style="color:rgb(17,17,17);font-family:'Courier
New',Courier,monospace;font-size:12px;white-space:nowrap;background-color:rgb(254,255,255)">「创业容易守业难」</span></font></div>
<div style="text-align:center"><font face="Courier New,
Courier, monospace"><span
style="color:rgb(17,17,17);font-family:'Courier
New',Courier,monospace;font-size:12px;white-space:nowrap;background-color:rgb(254,255,255)">“To
open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art”</span></font></div>
<div style="text-align:center"><span
style="color:rgb(17,17,17);font-family:'Courier
New',Courier,monospace;font-size:12px;white-space:nowrap;background-color:rgb(254,255,255)"><br>
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face="Courier New,Courier,monospace" color="#111111"><span
style="font-size:12.2222px;white-space:nowrap"><a
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/9/2019 7:55 PM, Dominguez, Ricardo
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:SN4PR0401MB3694490F8ADFD8D0A14B8CA6CDB80@SN4PR0401MB3694.namprd04.prod.outlook.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------</pre>
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Hola tod@xs,</div>
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<br>
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<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
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So it seems that shifts in the atmospherics of HK are happening
with Carrie Lam deleting the extradition bill. Meanwhile Xi
calls on
<br>
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hard-state principles: <br>
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<br>
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“On matters of principle, not an inch will be yielded,” Mr. Xi
said, “but on matters of tactics there can be flexibility.”<br>
</div>
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<br>
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<a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/world/asia/hong-kong-carrie-lam-protests.html"
id="LPlnk383897" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/world/asia/hong-kong-carrie-lam-protests.html</a></div>
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<br>
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What we know is that HKUmbrellas have shifted the spaces toward
other possibilities-an amazing human effort-and while the world
is watching multiple social waves and screenal witnessing the
question that comes next for all Umbrella's "not an inch" or
flexible tactics? This seems to be the burning question-in HK,
on-line, on the border and in the Amazon-very very hot days all
around.
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Abrazos y gracias for the critical info,</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Ricardo<br>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
empyre forum
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></pre>
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