page_title: Hong Kong 1 July marches
section_title: 2004
hierarchical_section_title: Hong Kong 1 July marches / 2004
caption_attribution_description: English: I took this photo outside Hong Kong Central Library at that day
context_page_description: The Hong Kong 1 July protests is an annual protest rally originally held by the Civil Human Rights Front from the day of handover in 1997 on the HKSAR establishment day. However, it was not until 2003 that the march drew large public attention by opposing the legislation of Basic Law Article 23. The 2003 protest, with 500,000 marchers, was the second-largest protest seen in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.
  Prior to this, only the pro-democracy protest on 21 May 1989 drew more people with 1.5 million marchers in Hong Kong sympathising with the participants of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The introduction of Article 23 legislation was left aside due to the protest. Since then, 1 July marches have been organised every year to demand for democracy, universal suffrage, rights of minorities, protection of freedom of speech, and a variety of other political concerns.
  In 2019, the anti-extradition bill protest on 16 June broke the record of largest protest in Hong Kong with nearly 2 million marchers. The 1 July march in the same year with 550,000 marchers, was the largest 1 July march.
context_section_description: The headline theme for 1 July 2004 march was "Striving For Universal Suffrage in '07 & '08 for the chief executive and Legislature respectively (爭取07, 08普選)." As the National People's Congress Standing Committee attempted to modify the Basic Law on 6 April 2004 to deny direct elections for the chief executive in 2007 and the Legislative Council in 2008. There was much criticism as to the slogan for the 2004 protest by some Beijing bureaucrats and pro-Beijing political parties. The phrase "Return power to the people" was particularly inflammatory, because it implied that power was taken away from the people, according to pro-Beijing parties. Some pro-democracy political leaders such as Lau Chin-shek had considered changing the phrase, but many criticised this move as it was seen to be satisfying Beijing. The organisers kept the phrase.
  White was the dress code for the day representing the desire for universal suffrage. On the other hand, pro-government groups lobbied the public to wear red (the colour traditionally worn for celebratory occasion in Chinese culture) to take part in a counter-protest they were holding. Despite the dazzling heat, the number of turn out was still very high.  Numerous sources debated on the size of the actual turnouts. The organisers, Civil Human Rights Front, estimated that 530,000 took part in the demonstration, surpassing the number from the previous year, while the police set the figure at 200,000. The figures were disputed by many, saying that the number could not have been over 200,000. Dr. P.S. Yip Senior Lecturer of the Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science of the University of Hong Kong, suggested that the maximum number of participants could only have been around 192,000. The general acceptance is that the crowd size was smaller than the 2003 crowd.
caption: Hong Kongers walked out of their holiday (photo taken outside Hong Kong Central Library).
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