The Hong Kong government stirred up a political squabble yesterday by claiming just 7,600 people had turned out to protest Beijing's assertion of control over electoral reforms -- a much lower number than demonstrators and police had used.
University of Hong Kong statistics lecturer Paul Yip (葉兆輝) said releasing such a figure days after Sunday's march would play no useful role in police crowd control and he suggested the government had a hidden political agenda.
"It shows that there is a very deep distrust between the government and the public," Yip told RTHK radio.
The protesters marched to China's liaison office to demand that Beijing reverse its binding ruling, issued last week, that any political reforms in Hong Kong must get advanced approval from the central government.
Rally organizer Jackie Hung said 20,000 people had turned out, and a human rights group that said it had conducted an independent count put the figure at 17,000 or more. Police estimated the crowd at 10,000.
Hong Kong officials released their smaller figure on Tuesday night. They did not say who conducted the government survey, but said they might produce similar crowd counts at future rallies on a "case by case" basis.
Elsewhere, pro-democracy protesters were involved in scuffles with police yesterday as they rallied against a leading Chinese figure's criticism of the protest, police and reports said.
A handful of activists from the radical April Fifth Action Group were dragged away from a police station as they chanted anti-China slogans, reports said.
Police said there were no arrests and that the encounter was "largely peaceful."
The gathering had been called to denounce Xu Chongde (許崇德), a Chinese legal expert who criticized a 15,000-strong protest against China on Sunday. Xu said the marchers had been "disrespectful" to the Chinese leadership.
Wednesday's protesters carried banners urging Xu be given an award "for making the most absurd comment of the year," local radio reports said.
The April Fifth Action Group, led by colorful campaigner Leung Kwok-hung (
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS