Victoria Park: Yes to pro-Beijing rally, no to annual pro-democracy march
The Hong Kong Celebrations Association has booked the area for the whole day. It usually does so only for the morning. The move is “to silence dissenting voices” and prepare the grounds for Xi Jinping’s visit.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews) – Honk Kong’s annual pro-democracy march will not be held in Victoria Park because the authorities have already booked it for a pro-Beijing group that wants to mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. The pro-democracy march has been held since 2004.
Victoria Park contains six football pitches. The Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), which organises the March every year, uses them to bring tens of thousands of people before marching to the centre.
This year, the Hong Kong Celebrations Association (HKCA), which is composed of 40 pro-Beijing groups, including business chambers and the Federation of Trade Unions, applied to use the same venue for the same time slot.
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and Zhang Xiaoming, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, are the event’s honorary patrons.
The department that manages Victoria Park has not yet decided to whom allocate the area. It noted however that the HKCA applied on 15 March whereas the CHRF applied in April. In addition, consideration would be based on the ‘nature of the organisation”.
The CHRF notes that in the past the HKCA used the park only in the morning, leaving it available in the afternoon. This year it asked to use it for the whole day.
According to march organisers, this is “move to silence dissenting voices made out of political considerations”.
To mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China, China's President Xi Jinping is expected to attend, but this has not yet been officially announced.
The pro-democracy march has been held since 1997, but in 2003 – with the participation of more than half a million people – it gained greater visibility since participants protested against the introduction in Hong Kong of a security law similar to the one in mainland.
Since then, criticism of Beijing's influence on the territory or the lack of full democracy, denied by China to Hong Kong, have been the main theme. The CHRF hopes to organise the march in Victoria Park one way or another.
.png)
19/04/2007
19/06/2020 15:09
