You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today has been intimately involved with the delicate recent history of one of the world's great city territories,

Hong Kong. Anson Chan was chief secretary to the last Hong Kong administration under British rule.

She has since been a member of the Territory's Legislative Council,

and she currently leads a think tank considering electoral reform.

She is not anyone's definition of a firebrand or a troublemaker,

but as Hong Kong has been rocked by months of pro-democracy street protests,

Anson Chan has been accused by Beijing of orchestrating the unrest.

She, in turn, has accused Hong Kong's chief executive

Carrie Lamb and her ultimate paymasters in Beijing of repressing the legitimate democratic

rights of Hong Kongers and riding roughshod over the territory's special status and basic law,

as agreed at the time of the handover. So with tensions

rising, is Hong Kong's fragile status quo irretrievably broken? Well, Anson Chan joins me now on the line

from Hong Kong. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. In your city, we have seen three months now of street demonstrations

and protests. They have become increasingly violent. Is your heart and your head still with the

protest movement? Yes, very much so. I think it is a pity that there is

escalating violence, both on the part of the protesters, although involving a very small

number of people, but also on the part of the police, the police are increasingly brutal

and unrestrained in exercise of their powers. But I'm very much behind

the underlying causes of this movement. It is about Hong Kong's fight to defend basic freedoms,

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