No one expected it would come to this: months of protests; a city permanently cloaked in drifting clouds of tear gas; burning barricades and petrol bombs; vandalised MTR stations and Starbucks stores; a high school student protester shot in the chest by police.

It all started with what at first glance looked to be a legal technicality — the government proposed to introduce a law enabling criminal suspects to be extradited to face trial in mainland Chinese courts. This seemed an unlikely cause to animate the passions of Hongkongers: few would ever face any risk of extradition. But the issue touched something more elemental. The proposal blurred the line between the Hong Kong and mainland justice systems, a distinction carefully maintained in the “one country, two systems” arrangement under which Hong Kong was returned from British to mainland Chinese rule in 1997. More than that, it threatened the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong but not by the rest of China: those Hong Kong “core values”, like the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and the freedom of expression, assembly and religion. In the extradition law, Hongkongers saw the beginning of the death of Hong Kong as they know it.

And so, on Sunday, 9 June, they marched: 1 million people, dressed in white — the traditional Chinese colour of mourning — all afternoon and late into the night, the largest protest march in Hong Kong’s post-handover history. They marched hoping that their government would hear and respond to their concerns.

At eleven o’clock that night, as thousands were still marching, the government response came. It was good to see “Hong Kong people exercising their freedom of expression within their rights as enshrined in the Basic Law,” read the brief government statement, which concluded with a single line, a punch to the gut: “The Second Reading debate on the Bill will resume on June 12.”

It was shockingly tone-deaf by any measure, a “drop dead” to a significant proportion of the city’s populace. Plans immediately began for a follow-up protest outside the Legislative Council (LegCo) on the 12th. With pro-Beijing parties holding a majority in the city’s gerrymandered legislature, people knew that only radical action could prevent the bill from becoming law. And so it began.

I have lived in Hong Kong for twenty years and witnessed its long, vibrant history of protest first-hand. During the Umbrella Movement protests of 2014 I kept a “protest diary”, and when the anti-extradition-law protest movement began, I decided to do the same.

Wednesday 12 June

When I arrive outside government headquarters in Admiralty early in the morning, I feel as if I have been transported back in time. The scene before my eyes — the entirety of Harcourt Road, a ten-lane highway, completely occupied by tens of thousands of young protesters in black T-shirts — is exactly as I had seen it in the first days of the 2014 protests. Already the “supply stations” made famous during the Umbrella Movement are springing up along the roadside and being equipped with everything from first-aid supplies to water and snacks. Dozens of umbrellas hang along a railing, awaiting deployment. Barricades are rapidly being assembled to blockade the streets.

• Tags: Antony Dapiran, Hong Kong, Issue 17