Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 18 Aug 2019, 05:06 pm Print
Wikimedia Commons
Hong Kong (Sputnik/UNI) Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched in the center of Hong Kong despite a police ban and rainy weather, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Sunday.
Participants of the rally organized by the opposition Civil Human Rights Front demand fully abandoning the law on extradition. They also call upon the authorities to stop dubbing the recent mass protests as "riots," release all detained demonstrators, start an independent investigation into police actions during protests and introduce direct general elections.
The opposition initially called for a march, but police banned it, saying that the organizers were not able to provide security at the event.
The organizers told reporters that the rally would be peaceful, saying that police would be responsible for all violent incidents at the rally.
Initially, the protesters gathered in Victoria Park. An hour later a crowd of protesters began to leave the territory of the park, flooding the streets and roads of the city.
It is currently raining heavily in Hong Kong, but this does has not deterred demonstrators.
Earlier in the day, the organizers said they expected more than 300,000 participants at the rally on Sunday.
The protests in the financial hub began more than two months ago after the local legislature opened debates on a bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China. The city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has since declared the bill "dead."
The protesters are demanding that it must be withdrawn completely. Locals also want the city authorities to implement universal suffrage and retract criminal charges against the protesters.
- UN experts urge Thailand to halt deportation of 48 Uyghurs to China citing serious concerns over potential torture
- Bangladesh: Court may hear arrested Hindu priest Chinmoy Krishna Das' bail petition today
- US Senator Marco Rubio vows to oppose deportation of 48 Uyghurs from Thailand to China
- Pakistan: Ahmadi worship place, which was built by country's first Foreign Minister Zafarullah Khan, demolished
- Uyghur woman sentenced to 17 years in prison in China for giving Islamic religious lessons to her two sons, neighbour