Just call it the anti-protest protest.
Tens of thousands of people marched through Hong Kong yesterday in support of China and to protest Occupy Central, a pro-democracy movement that says it will plan to stage a civil disobedience sit-in unless the Chinese government allows the Hong Kong public to nominate and vote for its next leader.
Robert Chow, the organizer of Sunday's march, said it represented Hong Kong's desire to work "peacefully" with the Chinese government in Beijing on political reform.
"We want universal suffrage, but not at any cost," he told CNN Monday.
The pro-government march followed the same route as Hong Kong's massive annual anti-government, pro-democracy rally on July 1, but the tenor was markedly different: Sunday's marchers were arranged into organized groups wearing matching t-shirts, some emblazoned with names of mainland Chinese organizations. Many waved Chinese flags.
Paid protester claim
Local media swirled with reports of marchers getting paid or bused in to attend the pro-government march. Onevideo (Cantonese) purportedly showed cash being handed out to marchers. Other images appeared to show marchers getting paid and enjoying free food in a dim-sum restaurant.
Chow said he took the bribery accusations "seriously" and would "investigate" but maintained that no laws were broken.
There were also conflicting reports on the size of the march. Chow said his group counted a "quarter million" marchers, but an estimate by University of Hong Kong statisticians put the number much lower, between 79,000 and 88,000.
By contrast, July's pro-democracy rally drew between 154,000 and 172,000, according to the university.
Pictures taken by reporters appeared to show a noticeably thinner crowd on Sunday than the crowd in July, but Chow said the difference was because "we were marching very, very fast."
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