Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters yesterday rallied outside a train station linking Hong Kong to China, the latest mass show of anger as advocates try to keep pressure on the territory’s pro-Beijing leaders.
The rally was the first major large-scale protest since Monday last week’s unprecedented storming of the Hong Kong Legislative Council by largely young, masked protesters — which plunged the territrory further into crisis.
Hong Kong has been rocked by a month of huge marches as well as a series of separate violent confrontations with police, sparked by a bill that would allow extraditions to China.
Photo: AP
The bill has since been postponed in response to the intense backlash, but that has done little to quell public anger, which has evolved into a wider movement calling for democratic reforms and a halt to sliding freedoms in the semi-autonomous territory.
Organizers said about 230,000 people snaked their way through streets in the harbor-front district of Tsim Sha Tsui, an area popular with Chinese tourists.
Police said 56,000 turned out at the protest’s peak.
The march was billed as an opportunity to explain to Chinese in the territory what their protest movement is about.
Inside China, where news and information are heavily censored, the Hong Kong protests have been portrayed as a primarily violent, foreign-funded plot to destabilize the motherland, not a mass popular movement over Beijing’s increased shadow over the semi-autonomous territory.
“We want to show tourists, including mainland China tourists, what is happening in Hong Kong and we hope they can take this concept back to China,” Eddison Ng, an 18-year-old demonstrator, told reporters.
Hong Kongers speak Cantonese, but protesters were using Bluetooth to send leaflets in Mandarin — the predominant language in China — to nearby smartphones, hoping to spread the word by digital word of mouth.
“Why are there still so many people coming out to protest now?” one man said in Mandarin through a loudspeaker. “Because the Hong Kong government didn’t listen to our demands.”
Many protest banners were written with the simplified Chinese characters used in China, not the traditional characters used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
A Hong Kong lawmaker coached crowds how to chant “Students are not rioters” using standard Mandarin pronunciation.
Protesters were demanding that the postponed extradition bill be scrapped entirely, an independent inquiry into police use of tear gas and rubber bullets, amnesty for those arrested, and for the unelected Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) to step down.
In an interview with the BBC yesterday, Chinese Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming (劉曉明) said the extradition bill was needed to “plug loopholes” and that Beijing has “full confidence in the Hong Kong government.”
The protest began on the waterfront — the first time a rally has taken place off Hong Kong’s main island — and made its way to West Kowloon, a multibillion-dollar station that links to China’s high-speed rail network.
Police placed the glass-and-steel structure in virtual lockdown. Long lines of water-filled security barriers surrounded the station, while only those with previously purchased tickets were being allowed in.
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is to tighten rules for candidates running for public office, requiring them to declare that they do not hold a Chinese household registration or passport, and that they possess no other foreign citizenship. The requirement was set out in a draft amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法 ) released by the ministry on Thursday. Under the proposal, candidates would need to make the declaration when submitting their registration forms, which would be published in the official election bulletin. The move follows the removal of several elected officials who were
The Republic of China (ROC) is celebrating its 114th Double Ten National Day today, featuring military parades and a variety of performances and speeches in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei. The Taiwan Taiko Association opened the celebrations with a 100-drummer performance, including young percussionists. As per tradition, an air force Mirage 2000 fighter jet flew over the Presidential Office as a part of the performance. The Honor Guards of the ROC and its marching band also heralded in a military parade. Students from Taichung's Shin Min High School then followed with a colorful performance using floral imagery to represent Taiwan's alternate name
FOUR DESIGNATED AREAS: Notices were issued for live-fire exercises in waters south and northwest of Penghu, northeast of Keelung and west of Kaohsiung, they said The military is planning three major annual exercises across the army, navy and air force this month, with the navy’s “Hai Chiang” (海強, “Sea Strong”) drills running from today through Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The Hai Chiang exercise, which is to take place in waters surrounding Taiwan, would feature P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and S-70C anti-submarine helicopters, the ministry said, adding that the drills aim to bolster the nation’s offshore defensive capabilities. China has intensified military and psychological pressure against Taiwan, repeatedly sending warplanes and vessels into areas near the nation’s air defense identification zone and across
A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would severely threaten the national security of the US, Japan, the Philippines and other nations, while global economic losses could reach US$10 trillion, National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) wrote in an article published yesterday in Foreign Affairs. “The future of Taiwan is not merely a regional concern; it is a test of whether the international order can withstand the pressure of authoritarian expansionism,” Lin wrote in the article titled “Taiwan’s Plan for Peace Through Strength — How Investments in Resilience Can Deter Beijing.” Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) intent to take Taiwan by force
RSS