Carrie Lam set out to meet the protesters at the Queen’s Pier to communicate with them. The majority of the media has praised Carrie Lam for “going into the tiger’s lair”, and the HKSAR Police Force declared their clearing of the Queen’s Pier a total success.
Compared to the PLA’s most infamous mission, the HKPF has indeed done quite well, but let us not forget that the HKPF had nonetheless used force to move the protesters, i.e. against their liberty and free will. HKPF could claim “minimal and necessary force”, but it was force nonetheless, and whether it was “necessary” is highly arguable, for the reason that the judicial review procedure was under way and there is no reason why, if given a fair trial in the judicial review, the HKSAR Govt should assume that the protesters are irrational and would not abide to the JR ruling.
One thing we have totally missed is, in this civilized society, when the government is dealing w/ a bunch of non-violent, law-abiding citizens, is any level of force necessary? Have we seen so much police crowd control actions that we have become totally numb to the state machine using force against people’s liberty?
The bottom line is, once force was used to remove the protesters against their free will from the Queen’s Pier, the citizens’ personal liberty was violated, and Carrie Lam and the HKSAR Govt had failed. There is no glory and no honour. There is only shame.