Hong Kong 1 July Marches - 2004 Protest

2004 Protest

The headline theme for the 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 criticized this move as it was seen to be satisfying Beijing. The organizers 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 color 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 organizers, 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 had been around 192,000. The general acceptance is that the crowd size is smaller than the 2003 crowd.