In China, Hong Kong protests out of sight, out of mind

HONG KONG — As tens of thousands demonstrated peacefully for democracy in Hong Kong on Wednesday, displays of freedom were carefully kept out of sight and out of mind elsewhere in China.

The government in Beijing celebrated National Day — the 65th anniversary of Communist Party rule — by showing that it remains very much in charge and no more interested in democracy than when it took charge of the country in 1949.

Security was so tight that 10,000 pigeons used in a flag-raising ceremony first underwent anal security checks for suspicious objects, the state-run People's Daily reported. Human rights groups said dozens of Chinese activists were detained or intimidated for supporting the Hong Kong protests. And media coverage was limited to short critical reports.

While Hong Kong's media outlets provided extensive coverage of the unprecedented, festival-like protests, the widely watched evening news of China state broadcaster CCTV on Wednesday highlighted a People's Daily editorial repeating earlier calls to preserve Hong Kong's "prosperity and stability."

Online, Chinese censors have removed information and images about the protests. The number of posts deleted from the popular Sina Weibo micro-blogging platform, a Twitter equivalent, has hit a record high for 2014, Fu King-wa, a University of Hong Kong media expert and founder of the censorship-tracking website Weiboscope, told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Following the ban on photo-sharing app Instagram over the weekend, China's censors have also blocked access to websites such as the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have long been banned in China.

Chinese citizens who show public support for Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement face swift reprisals. Police have detained at least 20 people in several mainland cities over the past two days for posting pictures online or showing their support in other ways, human rights group Amnesty International reported Wednesday.

Sixty more have been called in for questioning, said Amnesty International. "The rounding up of activists in mainland China only underlines why so many people in Hong Kong fear the growing control Beijing has in their city's affairs," said William Nee, Amnesty's Hong Kong-based China researcher.

"North of the border, it's autocracy as usual," said Kenneth Chan, an elected Hong Kong politician and member of the liberal democratic Civic Party. "So it's even more important for us to strike for democracy and take the lead so that liberalization in China arrives sooner rather than later," he said Wednesday.

"Hong Kong people are fed up with worsening conditions under 'one country, two systems'," said Chan, who praised the protesters for their non-violence and said he expects the movement to continue for weeks. "No car has been burnt or over-turned, and no windows smashed," he said. "It shows the quality of our society and that we deserve democracy."

Christian Pastor Li Sohan, 28, began a two-day fast for prayer Wednesday, to encourage all involved to stay calm — and to demand civil and political rights. "The mainland media report that we are celebrating National Day in Hong Kong, but we are not, we are participating in this movement," she said. "They say we are 'extremists', but we are moderates, we just sit down and talk, with no violent action."