Opposition protests suspend Hong Kong assembly session

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam was again forced from the legislative chamber because of protests Thursday by opposition members following a bloody attack on a leader of the nearly 5-month-old protest movement.

Pro-democracy lawmakers shouted and waved placards depicting Lam with bloodied hands, prompting their removal by guards and the suspension of proceedings.

A day earlier, Lam was forced to abandon an annual policy address in the chamber, later delivering it by television.

Disruption in the chamber and the attack Wednesday night on Jimmy Sham by assailants wielding hammers and knives marked the latest dramatic turn in the unrest that has rocked the city since June.

Protesters and police have both deployed levels of violence unseen since the former British colony reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

Prior to her departure, Lam reiterated that her "first priority" was ending the violence that has dealt a body blow to the local economy as well as Hong Kong's reputation as a safe, law-abiding center for finance and business with a sophisticated independent judiciary.

Lam said she was working with the city's 180,000 public servants and transport authorities to restore order, although that task was made harder by members of the public sympathetic to the cause of the "rioters," as she termed the hard-core protesters.

However, she was forced to withdraw amid calls for her resignation, with pro-democratic legislator Claudia Mo shouting, "Carrie Lam, you are a liar."
The movement then ballooned to encompass broader clamors for universal suffrage, an independent inquiry of the policing methods used against protesters and other demands, including ending the description of protesters as "rioters."
It suggested the assault was politically motivated, linked "to a spreading political terror in order to threaten and inhibit the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights."
"If you think you're being peaceful and you're safe, you're not."