Hundreds of demonstrators risked arrest on Sunday to protest Hong Kong's new national security law and demand the right to vote, on what would have been the day of the 2020 Legislative Council elections, now postponed a year.
At least two prominent activists, Figo Chan of the group Civil Human Rights Front and veteran legislator and democracy activist Leung Kwok-hung, known as "Long Hair," were among 90 people arrested.
Earlier this year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam triggered emergency powers to postpone the vote until 2021, citing a surge in Covid-19 cases, numbers of which have nearly reached the 5,000 mark, with 94 dead.
Tempers have been high since authorities added the national security law into an annex of the city's mini-constitution, the basic law, in June.
Police warned that they would deploy large numbers of riot police around the city and fired rounds of pepper balls at protesters who refused to disperse.
Police said protesters chanting slogans constituted breaches of the public order ordinance and a disease control regulation.
Protests like Sunday's have not been seen since the onset of the new law, which critics say has severely impinged the rights and freedoms of those living in the city.
Those gathered shouted, "Five demands, not one less," and shouted calls for Beijing to release 12 activists who were recently detained in China after they were caught trying to flee by boat to Taiwan.
Lam has ignored requests to scrap the new law and to let the elections go ahead.
