CHN:Hong Kong protesters urge human rights on China national day
Fri Oct 2 01:27:07 EST 2009
Thu Oct 1 15:27:07 UTC 2009
HONG KONG, Oct 1 AFP - Hundreds of Hong Kong people took to the streets Thursday to urge Chinese leaders to improve human rights and release jailed dissidents as the country celebrated 60 years of communist rule.
The protesters, dressed in black and holding banners, said the country had made little progress on rights and democracy despite its achievement on the economic and military fronts.
"There is nothing worth celebrating today," Lee Cheuk-yan of Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the protest, addressed the crowd before they marched to China's liaison office.
Lee said many Chinese dissidents remained imprisoned and Beijing continued to maintain its official verdict condemning the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations, which saw hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters killed by troops in Tiananmen Square.
"If Chinese people want to 'stand tall', they need to have the dignity of a human being," a spokesman for the alliance said, borrowing the phrase used by by President Hu Jintao in his address on Thursday to the huge crowd of spectators at a military parade in Beijing.
Hu said China was "standing tall and firm in the East" and hailed the success of the Communist Party in the country.
Michael Tsui, a university student in the Hong Kong protest, said he could not share the jubilation of the Chinese leaders.
"I am a typical Hong Kong person -- I don't feel that patriotic," he told AFP.
"I find it hard to understand why China has to spend so much money on lavish ceremonies when the country is plagued with human rights and social problems. What are they celebrating?"
Emannuel Yu, another protester, said: "If a citizen cannot even voice their opinion freely on his land, a country will have no hope. Any achievement will only be superficial achievement," he said.
China tightened its crackdown on online dissents in the run-up to the National Day, which it sees as an opportunity to tout its success.
However, Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but was allowed to operate a separate legal and administrative system, has upheld the principle of freedom of expression.
