Hong Kong assembly session halted again by opposition protest

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

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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 on television.

A pro-democracy lawmaker is escorted by security from the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Thursday.

Lam, who is backed by China’s government, was due to speak a day after announcing measures to tackle the city’s chronic housing shortage in her annual policy address, which she was forced to deliver by video after pro-democracy lawmakers heckled her in the legislature.

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.