A crowd estimated to be larger than 1 million took to the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday to voice their opposition to legislation that would allow China to extradite people to mainland China in the most massive protests since Britain handed back control of the city in 1997.
The throngs streaming through the high rise-lined streets represented a cross-section of the city’s residents — young children, students, families pushing strollers, elderly people wielding canes and professionals — with many chanting “go Hong Kongers” and “no China extradition, no evil law” and demanding Beijing scrap the legislation up for debate on Wednesday in the Legislative Council.
Organizers put the army of demonstrators at more than a million — which would represent one of every seven residents in the city – but Chinese officials dismissed the crowd as about 240,000 people at the peak of the protests.
The marchers not only spoke against the extradition law, but also about the lack of transparency in government and the continuing erosion of their personal rights to an ever more repressive China.
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