About 20,000 people have taken to the streets of Hong Kong in one of the biggest demonstrations in recent years to protest against planned anti-subversion legislation. The protest snaking through the streets of Hong Kong to the territory’s government headquarters was far larger than most people had expected.

Complaining about a lack of Chinese progress, Amnesty International exhorted American diplomats Friday to set specific goals and demand the release of political prisoners during a new round of human rights talks in Beijing next week.

The percentage of respondents who said they were “not worried” fell to 58 percent in November — the lowest level since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule — from 68 percent in August. The survey found that those expressing their anxiety included foreigners living in Hong Kong and business people.

She believes the only way she could return to China safely would be to renounce her faith in Falun Gong — an option she won’t consider. Her family has warned her that the authorities are compiling evidence against her and would immediately arrest her if she came home.

The plaintiffs accuse this senior Chinese politician of being the organizer of the Chinese crackdown on Falun Gong members, who are regarded as the members of a sect. Georges-Henri Beauthier, a Belgian lawyer specializing in human rights law, has held a press conference in Paris.

With this legislation, “the shadow of the more restrictive practices of the People’s Republic of China appears to be looming,” said CPJ in the submission.China, the world’s leading jailer of journalists, currently holds 36 journalists in prison. Most imprisoned Chinese journalists are held on subversion or state secrets charges.

Human rights organizations fear that the proposals, if passed into law, would undermine the existing human rights and civil liberties enjoyed by Hong Kong people and could be used against anyone China or Hong Kong objects to, including political dissidents and religious or spiritual groups such as Falun Gong — already outlawed on mainland China.

PARIS (AFP) – Four followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group have launched legal action in France against the Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing, accusing him of torture, their lawyers said Saturday.

It revealed, among other things, that penalties for crimes against the state would be stiffened to include life imprisonment and that groups such as Falun Gong, which remains legal in Hong Kong despite its illegal status on the mainland, could be banned.

The 13 full-time professors criticised the consultation document, pointing out that the proposed legislation disregards the necessity for journalists to have the right to keep their news sources secret, and that it brushes aside the disparity in freedom of the press between the Mainland and Hong Kong, which blurs the ýone country, two systemsý policy.