Are protests in Hong Kong dying down? It may seem so, as the number of protesters coming out on streets seems to have significantly reduced. Protesters are marching in Hong Kong again and a march in Kowloon on Saturday afternoon drew a couple of thousand people who marched peacefully, chanting slogans and braving a ferocious downpour.
Around 200 people, some of them retirees gathered outside the police headquarters. Some of them shouted abuse at the police officers, but the officers did not intervene.
The low-key protests lacked the numbers of some much larger demonstrations seen during the more than four months of unrest that have gripped the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
As recently as last Sunday, tens of thousands of masked protesters had hit Hong Kong's rain-drenched streets.
In the meantime, Hong Kong authorities revealed yesterday that 750 of the protesters arrested are children and this has sparked outrage. The protesters are already angry about police's use of brute force to control the protests that have been going on for more than three months.
Besides the city's Chief Executive Carrie Lam stepping down, the protesters also want an independent inquiry to be conducted into police force on the protesters.
A week ago, a teenager was shot during a protest and this led things to take a violent turn. The city was suspended after protesters set fires at train station entrances and attacked police officers with petrol bombs.
Lam said she cared “deeply” for students and insisted that they should not participate in violent attacks.
