A pro-Beijing protester, center, sprays water at a pro-democracy protester, right, during a confrontation outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

The Hong Kong government’s controversial Beijing-backed election reforms were defeated today by pro-democracy lawmakers. The bill’s defeat comes at the end of Hong Kong’s most tumultuous year since Beijing took control in 1997 after a century and a half of British colonial rule. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets last year to protest the central government’s election screening requirement.