http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4517964.stm
Last Updated: Sunday, 11 December 2005, 08:56 GMT
Thousands gather for WTO protests
There is little doubt about the protesters' aims
Crowds are gathering in Hong Kong for the first of a series of protests
against the World Trade Organisation summit being held there this week.
Some 9,000 police officers will be on duty in case of trouble.
Other demonstrations are planned for Tuesday - when the summit opens -
and the following Sunday.
Around 10,000 activists are converging on Hong Kong to demonstrate at the
summit, which will bring together nearly 150 rich and poor nations.
The demonstrators say the meeting will largely benefit rich countries at
the expense of developing ones.
But supporters of the summit maintain that an international trade deal
could generate billions of dollars in benefits and possibly lift millions out
of poverty.
'Lot of fun'
The demonstration is the first event of what the organisers are calling
Hong Kong People's Action Week.
Protesters are wearing T-shirts with slogans like "Junk the WTO" and
"Stop collusion between government and business".
There are plans to march several kilometres to government offices in the
centre of town.
Many on this march are migrant workers from Indonesia and the
Philippines.
Sunday is their only day off, which is why they are on the streets. They
argue that WTO's policies are unfair to their home countries, meaning more and
more of them have to travel abroad to find work.
"Protests are just one way of voicing our concerns, our issues, our
demands," Mary Lou Malig of NGO Focus on the Global South told the BBC.
"We are inviting everyone in the local public to come join us. It really
is a lot of fun."
However, police have stepped up patrols around the conference centre,
amid fears of a repeat of the violence which marred the 1999 meeting in Seattle
and 2003 in Cancun.
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