Police arrest 500 after huge Hong Kong democracy march

Hong Kong police arrested more than 500 protesters at a sit-in early Wednesday following a huge march that organisers said mobilised half a million people demanding democratic reforms. The arrests followed a largely peaceful march on Tuesday that protest leaders said brought the biggest crowds onto the streets since the city was handed over from Britain to China in 1997. They said 511 demonstrators were arrested for illegal assembly or obstructing police, but pro-democracy activists and Amnesty International criticised the move as excessive. "It was necessary for police to make arrests in order to quickly restore transportation and order in the Central core financial district," Hong Kong's security minister Lai Tung-kwok told reporters.

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