On Sunday, August 11, early in the afternoon, pro-democracy protesters gathered in the heart of Victoria Park, Hong Kong, from where they began an unauthorized march by police.
"We're still here (...) and we'll see if we want to walk later," says a 25-year-old protester who simply introduces herself under her name, Wong. "That the gathering is illegal does not worry us much ... It would not be good for Hong Kong that everyone is afraid and no one dares to go down the street."
Police allowed the rally in Victoria Park but not the planned march from there to the east of Hong Kong Island.
Protesters are adopting the "cat and mouse" strategy this weekend to try to minimize direct confrontations with the police. "Our goal is to avoid injury, blood and arrests," said a 17-year-old student in Victoria Park whose last name is Chan.
Three main claims
On Saturday night, riot police fired tear gas and arrested 16 people, but protesters generally managed to avoid tough confrontations like those that have taken place in recent weeks.
Authorities also refused a second protest, which also began Sunday afternoon with several thousand participants, many dressed in black, with yellow helmets on their heads, in the Sham Shui Po working district in Kowloon.
Meanwhile, a sit-in continued for the third day in a row at Hong Kong International Airport. The hundreds of demonstrators present hope to rally to their cause foreign visitors who land in the former British colony.
"The goal is to occupy different parts of the city to show that all of Hong Kong is mobilized against the executive and that their demands are absolutely everyone," said Antoine Védeilhé, France 24 correspondent in Hong Kong.
The pro-democracy activists demand the election of a successor to Carrie Lam, the head of the executive, by direct universal suffrage, and not his appointment by Beijing, as is the case now.
They also demand an investigation into the violence they accuse the police, as well as the outright abandonment of the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Executive's controversial bill to allow extradition to China.
With AFP