Why the big difference in estimates for crowd size by police and organisers of Sunday’s protest march in Hong Kong?
- Discrepancy in the figures is a reflection of the polarisation in society, say two scholars
- Crowd estimations for march attendance have long been point of contention between pro-democracy and pro-government camps
Neither of the headcounts by police and protest organisers for Sunday’s march against Hong Kong’s proposed fugitive law amendment fully reflected reality, and the wide discrepancy between the two figures showed the further polarisation of society, two scholars have said.
The pro-democracy Civil Human Rights Front claimed 130,000 attended the march against a controversial amendment to the city’s Fugitive Offenders Ordinance.
Police, however, said that 22,800 were present at the event’s peak – less than a fifth of the front’s total.
“The enlarged gap reflects mistrust and the divide in society,” said Paul Yip Siu-fai, of the University of Hong Kong’s social sciences faculty.
Dr Chung Kim-wah, of Polytechnic University, argued that the tendency for police to underestimate turnouts might have prompted the organisers to exaggerate their estimate.