Hong Kong’s extradition bill, which would cover Hong Kong’s 7.4 million residents as well as foreign and Chinese nationals in the city, would allow criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.

Opponents of the bill, which was indefinitely suspended after violent protests, see it as a threat to the rule of law in the former British colony and would put them at the mercy of China’s justice system where human rights are not guaranteed.

Protesters are demanding the bill be completely scrapped.

All photographs were taken on assignment with Reuters.

“If the police are too strong, we will leave. They are a rock, so we must be like water,”