Hong Kong protests: hundreds take to malls for lunchtime rallies marking one-year anniversary of anti-government movement

Demonstrators gather across at least four major shopping centres to sing anthems, chant familiar slogans

Pointing to lack of universal suffrage, one clerk says you ‘can’t blame the victims’, but concedes Covid-19, security law fears have hampered movement

Reading Time:4 minutes

Anti-government protesters hold a ‘lunch with you’ demonstration at City Plaza in Tai Koo. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 3:40pm, 9 Jun 2020Updated: 5:03pm, 9 Jun 2020

Hundreds of protesters turned up in malls across Hong Kong on Tuesday, chanting defiant slogans and waving banners as they marked the first anniversary of an extradition bill protest that would soon morph into months of anti-government unrest.

“Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times”, protesters shouted at lunch time protests taking place across at least four major shopping centres in the city.

Inside the Landmark mall in Central, protesters spread posters across the floor bearing political slogans and supportive messages, asking fellow demonstrators not to forget their “original cause”.

Others waved a black flag demanding the city be ”liberated”, along with the city’s British colonial flag, while singing a rendition of the protest’s de facto anthem Glory to Hong Kong.

The mix of protesters ranged from secondary school students to middle-aged office workers.

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