Hong kong arrestHong Kong: More than 500 protestors were arrested in Hong Kong for participating in an all-night sit-in, after hundreds of thousands of people marched in the city to demand universal suffrage.

A total of 511 demonstrators – 351 men and 160 women – were detained for illegal assembly and obstructing police officers, police said. The sit-in was staged after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in one of the largest pro-democracy rallies in the city in the last decade.

According to the organisers, around 510,000 people participated in the march, although official sources reduced the figure to 98,600. The protest was held on the 17th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, to demand universal suffrage and less political intervention of the Beijing government in the matters of the former British colony.

After the march, a sit-in was held in front of the headquarters of the city government in the central business district of Hong Kong.