Protesters keep heat on HK chief Lam

Bloomberg

Hong Kong demonstrators gathered for another weekend of protests with a growing list of grievances, maintaining pressure on Chief Executive Carrie Lam who was reported to have offered her resignation several times in recent weeks to her political masters in Beijing.
Rally organisers said 110,000 people marched in the district of Sha Tin, a popular destination for visitors from mainland China, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. Police estimated the crowd at 28,000. They earlier deployed pepper spray at a small group of protesters who tried to breach a defense line.
Hong Kong demonstrators have rallied every week since mid-June, garnering global attention for the unprecedented size of the crowds, and as some turned violent.
The Financial Times, citing two people familiar with the matter, said that the Chinese government refused to accept Lam’s offers to step down. One of them said Beijing insisted that she remain in office to fix “the mess she created.”
Scuffles broke out between police and demonstrators after a rally against parallel traders ended in Sheung Shui, near the China border.
More than 30,000 people took part in the largely peaceful march, according to North District Parallel Imports Concern Group convenor Ronald Leung. Police estimated the turnout
at 4,000. Lam declared that the controversial draft legislation that would allow extraditions to
the mainland was “dead.” She stopped short of officially withdrawing the bill, leaving open the potential for authorities to revive it with 12 days’ notice
and providing new momentum for protesters.
Further protests are now being planned in neighbourhoods across the city by demonstrators organising themselves online and vowing to spread
the word in districts across
the city until Lam responds to their demands.
The Civil Human Rights Front, a leading protest organiser, called for a new rally on July 21 in the Admiralty area, ground zero for previous gatherings that brought hundreds of thousands of people on to the streets.
The group’s major demand will be an independent probe into what they call excessive use of force by police in dispersing previous demonstrations with weapons including tear gas, batons and rubber bullets.
Protesters’ ire has in recent days focussed on China, to whose rule it returned in 1997.
Thousands of demonstrators walked through the Tsim Sha Tsui area popular with mainland tourists towards the city’s new high-speed rail station to China, in order to reach out to visitors from China.
China has continued to back Lam publicly. Its top official in Hong Kong said Beijing continues to “fully” support her and the police’s efforts to safeguard social order in the city.
Beijing trusts the government “to continue to govern effectively in accordance to the law,” said Wang Zhimin, director of China’s liaison office in Hong Kong.