On the night of 1 July, hundreds of protesters forcibly broke into Hong Kong’s parliamentary Legislative Council building.
Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, who did not take part, explains why protesters felt that action was necessary.
Interview by Karishma Vaswani.
Joshua Wong : Force has been used by protestors due to their incentive, and (they went) together inside the chambers of the Legislative Council.
I understand people might have different comments or approach to this behavior by activists.
But I hope people will understand that the fundamental problem is the Legislative Council of Hong Kong is never democratically elected by people
That’s why people tried to get inside, and enter the Legislative Council. To show how theLegislative Council has never represented the voice of the people.
Reporter : So it sound like you’re supporting the violence, the violent acts we’ve seen, the devastation and destruction of LegCo.
Joshua Wong : No-one would love to see violence.
No-one would love to face certain risk to be prosecuted.
But I hope the international communities could understand how come youngsters in Hong Kong, high school students even younger than me, are wiilling to pay the price of being jailed for 10 years just because their plan to enter the Legislative Council.
25%, or even 30% de la population has joined the rally.
I just hope to remind everyone, if the Hong Kong Legislative Council was democratically elected, nobody would join the rally, because we could vote down and block the extradition bill inside the system, instead of outside on the streets.