500 pro-democracy protestors arrested in Hong Kong

Hong Kong, July 2 (IANS/EFE) More than 500 protestors were arrested in Hong Kong early Wednesday for participating in an all-night sit-in, after hundreds of thousands of people marched in the city to demand universal suffrage.

A total of 511 demonstrators - 351 men and 160 women - were detained for illegal assembly and obstructing police officers, police said.

The sit-in was staged after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets Tuesday in one of the largest pro-democracy rallies in the city in the last decade.

According to the organisers, around 510,000 people participated in the march, although official sources reduced the figure to 98,600.

The protest was held on the 17th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, to demand universal suffrage and less political intervention of the Beijing government in the matters of the former British colony.

After the march, a sit-in was held in front of the headquarters of the city government in the central business district of Hong Kong.

C.Y. Leung, head of state administration, said the government was trying to forge a consensus on political reform.

The pro-democracy activists are represented by the group Occupy Central District With Love and Peace (OCLP), which organised an unofficial referendum in June demanding universal suffrage that drew 800,000 votes (10 percent of the population) and was branded illegal by Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.

China has promised to introduce universal suffrage in the 2017 elections of the city, but wants a committee to approve the candidates.

Public uproar against the control of the Communist government increased after Beijing released the "Hong Kong White Book", a document stating that the autonomy of the former colony should be supervised by Beijing.

Many activists saw the document, the first of its kind in 17 years, as a threat of China's political interference over territorial issues and a violation of the principle of "one country, two systems", that granted full autonomy to the ex-colony on all issues except defence and foreign affairs for 50 years.

Hong Kong enjoys its own legal system thanks to the agreement reached in 1984 between Beijing and London that returned the colony to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

--IANS/EFE

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