July 02, 2014

Pro-democracy march in Hong Kong defies Beijing

located:	China
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

More than half a million people took to the streets of Hong Kong yesterday to demand greater democracy in their city-state, which is largely controlled by Beijing.

The march and sit-in, which were for the most part peaceful, demanded free elections for the territory's chief executive position.

As police warned protestors, most of them young, that they were in violation of the law, they continued to chant "change comes from the people" in Cantonese. Many banners read "say NO to communist China".

The police arrested 511 people for unlawful assembly and obstructing the police.

While protest organisers spoke of record crowd numbers, they also insisted that this was only a rehearsal for much larger sit-ins planned for later in the year. They said these will go ahead if Beijing does not allow Hong Kong, a former British colony, to have free elections.

At the end of last month more than 800,000 locals voted in an informal vote to make the elections more democratic. Beijing called this vote illegal.

Three weeks earlier, Beijing released a white paper which asserted severe authority over Beijing, which caused a backlash in the city-state. Hong Kong had been promised a "high degree of autonomy" when it was returned to Chinese sovereignty by the British in 1997, and the paper was clearly in violation of this.

Image: Getty Royalty Free