HONG KONG — Pro-democracy protesters took to the streets over the weekend in Hong Kong, flooding downtown around Admiralty, the government complex.
Occupy Central activits rallied against the government’s plan to limit electoral changes. The city’s authorities had promised Hong Kong residents they would be allowed to choose their own leader by 2017, but the government is now planning to restrict those changes. Contrary to what the government previously announced, only two or three candidates will be allowed on the ballot, and they will have to be chosen by a Beijing-friendly committee.
Having declared the protests illegal, authorities have allowed the Hong Kong police to fire tear gas and pepper spray at protesters, which has been covered on many social networks such as Instragram. The mainland China government even blocked the photo-sharing service. But that didn’t stop demonstrators from uploading hundreds of pictures once the service returned.
