Tens of thousands march for democracy in Hong Kong

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 5:16 AM Posted by Beijing News


Tens of thousands of people took to the sweltering streets of Hong Kong on Wednesday for an annual pro-democracy march, as the city marked the 12th anniversary of its return to China.

The huge crowd, estimated by organisers at 76,000, snaked through the city to demand the early introduction of universal suffrage and also to express frustration at the government on a whole gamut of issues, including its response to the economic slowdown.

Despite temperatures nudging 32 degrees Celsius 90 degrees Fahrenheit, many protesters gathered at the city's Victoria Park more than an hour before the march, sporting umbrellas to protect them from the scorching sun.

Dennis Chan, a 28-year-old salesman, who joined the march for the third time, said: "We want to let the government know that this is not our government."

The protesters sang the anthem "We Are Ready" and held banners to demand universal suffrage for the city's chief executive and legislature in 2012.

Beijing has said that universal suffrage would not come before 2017 at the earliest.

Organisers were hoping for a turnout that would shock the government in a similar way to the 2003 march, which saw 500,000 people take to the streets.

"The issues this year mirror those in 2003," Lee Cheuk-yan, a march organiser and leading trade unionist, told AFP.

"People are frustrated with a government which is unable to lead them through economic hardship and political crisis, although not to a point where they want the chief executive Donald Tsang to step down."

The 2003 march was galvanised by an economic downturn, the unpopular then-chief executive Tung Chee-hwa and controversy over the introduction of a proposed national security bill.

The show of people power saw the security legislation shelved and was a key factor in Tung's decision to resign the following year.

Opposition to the government, which is mainly driven by pro-democratic political parties, has grown in recent months as the latest global economic crisis has hit the financial and export hub hard.

The city fell into recession in the third quarter of 2008 and the government expects the economy to contract 5.5-6.5 percent in 2009.

Democracy supporters were further buoyed by the record turnout of 150,000 at the candlelight vigil last month to mark the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Among the crowd were also migrant workers who demanded to be included in new minimum wage legislation, one of the many concerns among the marchers.

The protest coincided with celebrations for the 12th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, after the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.

A separate, smaller pro-Beijing parade took place early Wednesday, with marchers waving China's national flag and traditional Chinese dragon dances.

A 40-strong "Complaints Choir" took advantage of Hong Kong's freedom -- the city has a different legal system from mainland China including the right to protest -- to perform a five-minute moan about various aspects of life from taxes to bad bosses.



A boy jumps while playing football in a field near Pretoria. AFP/Yasuyoshi Chiba

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