New | ‘Global Solidarity with Hong Kong’ rallies planned worldwide as Facebook turns yellow in support of protestors
Rallies in support of Hong Kong protesters who took to the street over the weekend to call for greater democracy have been held in multiple cities around the world, with more planned in the coming days.
Watch: Occupy Central leader: Movement "beyond imagination" and "touching"
Organisers of ‘Support Hong Kong from Canberra’, which took place around midday in the Australian capital, called on “all Hong Kong people in Canberra” to join, instructing participants to wear black clothes in solidarity with Occupy Central participants.
“Even if we can’t be at the scene of the protests, we are still determined to defend democracy!” The organisers of a rally in Adelaide on Monday said. “Even if we are in Australia, our heart is in Hong Kong! Our solidarity is with students in Hong Kong!”
Demonstrations were also held in Sydney and Perth. Australia has a sizeable Hong Kong migrant population, with more than 74,000 Australians born in Hong Kong according to the 2011 census, which does not include the children of immigrants from Hong Kong or those born in another country.
As well as protests, Hongkongers around the world have been organising petitions and writing open letters criticising police handling of the protests and calling on the international community to speak up for the demonstrators.
"We do not take sides in the discussion of Hong Kong’s political development," it said.
Meanwhile, on Facebook thousands of users have changed their profile pictures to a yellow ribbon to show their solidarity with protesters’ demands for genuine universal suffrage.
Others have adopted a yellow umbrella as the symbol of the movement, after protesters used umbrellas to fend off police pepper spray. Around 20,000 people have liked a Facebook page encouraging support for the Hong Kong “umbrella movement”. Other pages related to the protests have thousands of likes each.
