Asia News: Massive Protests In Hong Kong Over China Extradition Bill

As many as 1.03 million HongKongers demonstrated Sunday over a proposed law that would allow Hong Kong to extradite its citizens to China if they are suspected of committing a crime.

Although the protests are peaceful, police have used pepper spray to push back demonstrators from entering the Legislative Council building, Reuters reported.

The main points of criticism regarding the law is that HongKongers would receive fewer rights as defendants if their case takes place in a court in mainland China. It also could undermine the autonomous standing of Hong Kong. Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam has decided to move forward with the proposed legislation despite these criticisms.

"Nobody trusts the mainland government, how can people feel they would get a fair trial in the mainland," Claudia Mo, a Hong Kong journalist and politician, told Al-Jazeera. Ultimately, it means that someone accused of committing crimes against the mainland could be abducted on the streets of Hong Kong to go to court in China.

The last colonial governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, said that the bill would damage Hong Kong's independence and would make it "just another China city" in the eyes of governments around the world. He called the government's reasoning behind the bill "absolute nonsense" in a video message.

The protests are the largest in Hong Kong since the 2014 Umbrella Movement demonstrations over political reform which lasted the majority of the fall and winter of that year.