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The Anti-ELAB protests, also known as the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the Hard Hat Revolution, the Summer of Discontent, or the Water Revolution, was a series of anti-government and pro-democracy protests which took place in Hong Kong from 15 March 2019 to late 2020 in reaction to the local government's passage of an extradition law amendment bill (ELAB) which would allow for the Hong Kong government to extradite criminals to both Taiwan and, more importantly, mainland China. The Pro-democracy camp perceived this bill as a threat to China and Hong Kong's "One country, two systems" tradition, as pro-democracy activists feared that China would use the new bill to erode Hong Kong's political and legal autonomy and expose Hong Kong residents and visitors to China's legal system. The unrest in Hong Kong was also influenced by anti-mainland sentiment in Hong Kong, where localism and nationalism had swelled due to severe income inequality, Hong Kong's daily quota of 150 mainland Chinese immigrants, and recent years of pro-democracy and anti-Chinese agitation had resulted in almost no Hong Kong youths identifying as "Chinese" by 2019.

The first of the anti-ELAB protests broke out on 15 March 2019, when pro-democracy demonstrators staged a sit-in at the government headquarters. The protest actions escalated over the next few months, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators attending the 9 June 2019 protests. On 12 June, 40,000 protesters gathered outside the Government Headquarters and successfully stalled the second reading of the bill, but they were confronted by 5,000 Hong Kong Police Department officers, who used tear gas, rubber bullets, and bean bag rounds to disperse the protesters. This led to allegations of police misconduct, and the protest movement responded by laying out five demands: the complete withdrawal of the extradition bill, the retraction of the police's characterization of the demonstration as a "riot", the release and exoneration of arrested prisoners, the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into police conduct and the use of force during the protests, and the resignation of Chief Executive Carrie Lam and the implementation of universal suffrage for Legislative Council elections and for the Chief Executive. On 1 July 2019, the largest yet protest attracted 550,000 participants, and, that same night, angered by the suicides of three despondent pro-democracy activists, 30,000 protesters surrounded and stormed the Legislative Council Complex, injuring 15 police officers; 13 protesters were arrested. The storming of the Legislative Council Complex was a watershed moment in the protest movement, as it brought about a greater crackdown against the protesters. On 21 July, protesters defaced the Chinese national emblem at the Liaison Office in Sai Ying Pun, and, on that same day, black-clad protesters marched to "liberate Yuen Long". At 10:00 PM, 100 white-clad members of the Wo Shing Wo triad arrived at the Yuen Long railway station and attacked commuters indiscriminately, and the two initial police responders withdrew, as they were outnumbered by the assailants. The police did not return until 39 minutes later, by which time at least 45 people had been injured, including pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting. This resulted in allegations of police collusion with the triads being made, further inflaming anti-Chinese sentiment in Hong Kong. On 31 August 2019, a similar incident occurred at the Prince Edward station, where Hong Kong policemen indiscriminately attacked commuters with batons and pepper spray at the station, ostensibly targeting protesters returning home for the night. At least 10 civilians were injured and 65 arrested, causing the protesters to accuse the police of terrorism. On 4 September 2019, Lam decided to withdraw the ELAB bill to appease the protesters, but she refused to concede the other four demands. On 1 October 2019, however, continued violence (with rioters attacking policemen with rods) led to Lam implementing a ban on the wearing of masks in the city. On 4 November, 22-year-old student Chow Tsz-lok fatally injured himself in a fall from the second floor of a car park, and the protesters blamed the police for his death and planned a city-wide strike starting on 11 November. On 14 November, a 70-year-old janitor, Luo Changqing, was mortally wounded by a brick thrown at him by a protestor. At the same time, student activists began uprisings at their universities, resulting in a siege of the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 11 to 15 November 2019 (resulting in over 70 injuries and over 5 arrests), with police shooting pepper bullets and using tear gas canisters against the protesters, while the student-protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the police; the police later claimed that the campus had become a "weapon factory" for the protesters. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University was also besieged from 17 to 29 November, with the police using tear gas and water cannons against the protesters and the defenders retaliating with thrown bricks and Molotov cocktails, even repelling a police armored vehicle. Over 280 protesters were injured and over 1,100 more arrested, and the hospitals were flooded with injured protesters on 19 November.

On 24 November 2019, local elections were held to the Hong Kong District Council, and the pro-democracy camp won the elections in the largest landslide victory in Hong Kong history, with the ruling Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong losing 96 seats, compared to the Democratic Party of Hong Kong gaining 54 seats. Dozens of major pro-Beijing lawmakers, including Junius Ho - who had supported the triad attacks on protesters - were ousted from their seats, and the pro-Beijing parties lost a total of 242 (out of 479 total) seats. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the number of large-scale rallies decreasing due to fears about protests becoming "super-spreader" events. On 18 April 2020, police arrested pro-democracy leaders Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee, and Margaret Ng for their roles in the 2019 protests, drawing international condemnation. On 11 November 2020, after pro-democracy lawmakers Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki, and Kenneth Leung were disqualified from seeking re-election by a new rule barring candidates from supporting Hong Kong independence, foreign intervention in Hong Kong, or other acts against national security, 15 pro-democracy members of the Legislative Council resigned in protest, leaving only 43 of the LegCo's 70 seats filled, and essentially removing the government's opposition. The government went on to tighten its control by censoring school textbooks, deregistering "yellow-ribbon" teachers, and arresting opposition leaders. While the extradition bill had been defeated, the protest movement had largely failed, as the differing approaches of the peaceful "moderate" faction of the protest movement (who used hunger strikes, human chains, petitions, labor strikes, and class boycotts to achieve their goals) and the violent "radical" faction (employing brick-throwing, Molotov cocktails, intimidation, assaults on suspected undercover police, vandalism, property destruction, mass transit disruption, and economic pressure to destabilize Hong Kong) led to the Hong Kong government generalizing the protesters as "terrorists" and justifying their heavy-handed approach to suppressing the movement.

By December 2019, 2 people had been killed and over 2,600 injured, while, by February 2021, over 10,200 people had been arrested and 2,450 charged. The United Kingdom offered expedited citizenship to Hong Kong residents who qualified as British and Commonwealth residents, and, on 27 November 2019, the United States passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act to sanction Chinese and Hong Konger officials and end the United States' recognition of Hong Kong's special status as a separate authority from China due to what President Donald Trump perceived as China's ending of the "One country, two systems" policy.

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