Hong Kong is gearing up for what is expected to be one of its most massive protests in years against a proposed extradition law that would make it easier to dispatch fugitives to other places to face justice—including mainland China.


Hong Kong is gearing up for what is expected to be one of its most massive protests in years against a proposed extradition law that would make it easier to dispatch fugitives to other places to face justice—including mainland China.
In addition to a march in Hong Kong on Sunday (June 9), which organizers hope will draw some 300,000 people, demonstrations against the draft legislation will take place in New York, Washington DC, and Sydney. Lawmakers are expected to debate the amendment, which would overhaul Hong Kong’s existing Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, next week.
Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The current ordinance explicitly rules out extradition to any part of the People’s Republic of China. Under it, there are 46 categories of crimes that are liable for extradition to jurisdictions with which the city’s government has signed agreements to surrender fugitives. Each agreement spells out which specific crime categories are covered with a particular country.
The proposed amendment would allow, for the first time since Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, extraditions from the city to mainland China on a case-by-case basis. Critics say the law would be “legalized kidnapping,” a reference to the Hong Kong booksellers who vanished in 2015 and later turned up in the control of Chinese authorities in the mainland. (The law could also be used by other jurisdictions that don’t have agreements with Hong Kong to request fugitives.)
After pushback from Hong Kong’s business community and pro-China lawmakers, nine categories of crimes were removed from the initial list of 46. The crimes removed from the list were mostly white-collar commercial crimes. In addition, offences have to be punishable by seven years or more in prison, up from the previous level of three years, to be extraditable.
Below is a list of the 37 categories of crime that remain in the proposed amendment (the nine that were struck out from the original total of 46 are also marked below):