Hong Kong - Up to 1,000 pro-democracy activists are expected to take part in a march to present a petition demanding democracy in
Hong Kong to a visiting Chinese official on Saturday. Organizers of the protest said Thursday they would attempt to present their petition to Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy secretary general of the National People's Congress Standing Committee.
Qiao is to talk with legislators and
business leaders about Hong Kong's political development at a meeting in the city's Convention and Exhibition centre.
The official is expected to confirm that
China will not allow universal suffrage in Hong Kong in 2012 even though repeated opinion polls show that most people in the former British colony want full democracy as soon as possible.
Beijing will instead give its backing to a blueprint for political reform drawn up by Hong Kong's China-appointed chief executive which advocates limited universal suffrage from 2017 onwards.
Pro-democracy legislators and activists have reacted with dismay to the development and say they may switch tactics because they believe their voices are not being heard in Beijing.
Legislator Ronny Tong said his colleagues may boycott the legislature and call on the public to join in street protests. "This is going to be a long fight," he said in one interview published Thursday.
He said pro-democracy supporters were willing to spend time in jail in the course of their protests, adding: "Rational dialogue is no use when dealing with the central government."
Tong, speaking on government-run radio station RTHK, said there was "less and less room to be a moderate" as China was refusing to speak to even the most moderate of democrats.
Only half of Hong Kong's legislators are currently directly elected and there is no popular vote for the chief executive, who is chosen by an 800-member mostly pro-China
election committee.
Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 after 156 years as a British colony, is technically entitled to full democracy from 2007 under the terms of its mini-constitution.
However, China, while saying universal suffrage is the ultimate goal for Hong Kong, is known to be deeply uneasy about the territory's pro-democracy movement and has so far refused to put a date on free elections in the city of 6.9 million.
