insisted that it would not make any concessions and that the IPCC would suffice to investigate police misconduct. She also refused to declare the withdrawal of the bill, and ignored calls for her to resign. On 4 September 2019, Lam announced that she would formally withdraw the extradition bill, as well as introduce measures such as adding new members to the IPCC, engage in dialogue at the community level, and invite academics to join an "independent review committee" – with no investigative powers – to evaluate Hong Kong's deep-rooted problems. However, protesters and democrats saw the withdrawal as coming too late, and insisted that all of their five core demands be answered. One day prior to the first dialogue session of Lam on 26 September 2019, a Chinese envoy termed the demands "political blackmail", leading to doubts on the leeway Lam had in the sessions. The independent review committee was then shelved by Lam in May 2020. After condemning the protesters who had stormed the legislature on 1 July for their "use of extreme violence", and those who had defaced the national emblem during the 21 July protest, Lam suggested in early August 2019 that the protests had deviated from their original purpose and that their goal now was to challenge China's sovereignty and damage "one country, two systems". She suggested that radical protesters were dragging Hong Kong to a "path of no return" and that they had "no stake in society", and therefore, government meetings need not to include them. On 5 October 2019, after what Lam referred to as "extreme violence" had taken place, an emergency law from the colonial era was enacted to ban face masks in Hong Kong—without declaring a state of emergency—which sparked criticism from various human rights organisations. Starting from October, Lam regularly referred to the protesters as "rioters" and dismissed the protesters, despite them amassing mass support, throughout late 2019. She also allied with the police, and claimed that ending violence and restoring order, rather than responding to political demands, was what people wanted in Hong Kong. To cope with the ongoing protests, on 15 November 2019, the police had appointed no more than 100 Correctional Services Department (CSD) officers as special constables to assist them. In May 2020, the authorities announced they would recruit more personnel from the other five disciplinary services and bring the total number of special constables to 700.