Hundreds of thousands protest in Hong Kong today

From the BBC and the South China Morning Post: Hundreds of thousands of protesters are marching in Hong Kong today with a variety of demands, including free and direct elections, a minimum wage and a limit to privatization, the BBC reports. Protester Ida Chan told the BBC, "I want to express my dissatisfaction with the government. We feel we have no right to express our opinion, they don't accept the people's opinion." Of course, this has huge implications for press freedom in Hong Kong, but as the BBC reports, the protest does not represent a unified call for full democracy or autonomy from Beijing: "Our correspondent says how many people turn up is perhaps less important than what they choose to protest about. A mass movement for democracy would be much more worrying for Beijing than a more diverse protest about different local issues, he says." The website of the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post leads with two stories about the protest: "Tens of thousands march through Hong Kong streets" and "Organizers claim 350,000 at protest." Surprisingly, the paper depicts the protest as a much more radical pro-democracy movement than does the BBC, calling the event "a defiant call for democracy to communist rulers in China."

Source: BBC and the South China Morning Post