On March 29, 2019 Hong Kong’s Legislative Council published a bill to allow for the extradition of individuals in Hong Kong who had been charged with a crime to mainland China and Taiwan, two regions where Hong Kong did not have extradition treaties. The proposal of this bill led to mass protests throughout Hong Kong calling for its withdrawal, which would come to be known as the anti-extradition, or anti-elab protests. As these protests progressed and grew in strength the bill was eventually withdrawn, but by then the movement had come to focus on police brutality during the anti-extradition protests and the right of the people of Hong Kong to express themselves through peacefully assembly. Protesters rekindled the calls for democracy in Hong Kong that have existed for over a decade, growing in popularity during the 2014 protests known as the Umbrella Revolution and gaining significant momentum in 2019, emboldened by a vastly more aggressive and violent police response than had occurred during previous protests.
The following images are the result of 103 days covering the Hong Kong protests between August 28 and December 16, 2019.
