HONG KONG _ Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said her decision to scrap extradition legislation was only the "first step" to addressing the city's unrest, after protesters said the chief executive's concessions fell short of their demands.
Lam told a news conference Thursday that her decision to formally withdraw the controversial bill allowing extraditions to China and other moves would only be the "first step to break the deadlock in society." The legislation sparked almost three months of historic protests and its withdrawal has been a key demand of demonstrators over weeks of increasingly violent clashes with police.
Lam promised to examine underlying causes for the unrest that extend beyond the bill.
"It's obvious to many of us the discontentment in society extends far beyond the bill," Lam said, citing political, economic and social issues including housing and land supply. "We can discuss all these deep-seated issues in our dialogue platform to be established."
Pro-democracy activists and lawmakers have dismissed Lam's concessions as "too little, too late" and still want their remaining major demands met, including an independent inquiry into police's use of force and a push to nominate and elect their own leaders, a proposal Beijing has ruled out.
Protesters' next moves will telegraph whether Lam and her backers on the mainland bet correctly that conceding on the bill's withdrawal will calm the movement after three months of outcry over Beijing's increasing grip over the city. Students and other groups staged small peaceful protests Thursday morning to express disappointment with Lam's speech.
"The content of her speech announcing what she did announce is just too unacceptable," lawmaker Claudia Mo, who has been an active presence in the protest movement, told Bloomberg TV before Lam's briefing. "She kept blaming the young in Hong Kong for conducting what she called violence. But she wouldn't talk about, she wouldn't even mention police brutality, which has been so abundant and so transparent and obvious."
