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Activists celebrate China's national day with protests

Hong Kongers protested the Chinese army's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in a demonstration yesterday marking China's National Day.

Workers in nearby Macau rallied against illegal workers and corruption.

Meanwhile, China celebrated the occasion with a flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square, as scores of onlookers snapped photos in a light rain as the national anthem played, TV footage in Hong Kong showed.

The square was decorated with 400,000 pots containing 130 different species of flowers, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Tiananmen Square is the site of the bloody crackdown on student protesters on June 4, 1989, that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands.

In Hong Kong, activist lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄) and seven others marched near the site of a state-sponsored National Day reception. The protesters burned a photo of former Chinese premier Li Peng (李鵬) to denounce his alleged role in ordering the Tiananmen crackdown.

Leung said he was blocked from entering the reception because he was wearing a T-shirt saying, "The People Will Not Forget."

He was allowed in after changing clothes and once inside chanted "End one-party rule," Leung said.

Police spokesman C. Cheung said the protest was peaceful and no arrests were made.

The Chinese government still views the 1989 uprising as a "counterrevolutionary riot."

In nearby Macau, hundreds of workers marked National Day by demonstrating to denounce the alleged increase of illegal workers and alleged government corruption.

About 900 people drove motorcycles or marched to the offices of Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho (何厚鏵), police spokeswoman Lou Sin-man said. She said the march was peaceful.

Organizers said in a statement issued before the march ordinary Macau workers have not benefited from the territory's economic boom amid the expansion of its casino scene in recent years.
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