Following on the heels of a successful — and peaceful — mass rally at Victoria Park yesterday, the Civil Human Rights Front has announced that they are seeking permission for another march on Aug. 31 from Chater Garden to Beijing’s liaison office in Sai Wan.
Yesterday’s rally broke with what has become a pattern of violence in recent weeks, though some participants did engage in a technically unsanctioned march, which police had sought to prevent by confining the rally to the park.
CHRF convenor Jimmy Sham told Stand News that if the police “have enough intelligence,” they would not object to the Aug. 31 march, as it’s impossible to prevent people from taking part anyway.
The planned march is intended to call attention to limits imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong’s elections for Legislative Council and chief executive.
The date will be the five-year anniversary of the proposal of a so-called “electoral reform” package that would have allowed Hongkongers to vote for chief executive, but only from among a group of Beijing-approved candidates. Pro-dems ultimately rejected the bill as “fake” democratic reform, and for failing to make good on Beijing’s previous promises of genuine universal suffrage, which has become a central demand of the latest protest movement.
Organizers hope that marching on the anniversary would renew calls for “implementing the democratic universal suffrage system and really practicing the ‘Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong’” ethos, the Front said in a Facebook post.
The CHRF said 1.7 million joined yesterday’s pro-democracy rally, though police — who traditionally issue much, much smaller counts — said only 128,000 were present.
Whatever the true count, the crowd was such that moving around Victoria Park freely was all but impossible, and throngs of people spilled over to pack surrounding streets as well.
