By DIRK BEVERIDGE
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 1, 2003; 10:27 AM
HONG KONG - Hundreds of thousands of angry and worried Hong Kong residents marched peacefully Tuesday to protest an anti-subversion law they fear will undermine freedoms of speech, press and assembly.
"This will push Hong Kong toward an era of tyranny," said W.C. Mak, a 74-year-old retired nurse. Mak said the last time she demonstrated was June 1989, after Chinese troops crushed a student pro-democracy movement in Beijing and 1 million stunned people in Hong Kong, then a British colony, took to the streets.
An organizer of Tuesday's protest, Richard Tsoi, said more than 500,000 people had turned out.
Police said 350,000 people were on the streets during the peak of the demonstration - and the total would have been higher. They acknowledged it was the biggest protest here since the June 4, 1989, crackdown in Tiananmen Square shocked Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's national security law, expected to pass in a few days, will ban subversion, treason, sedition and other crimes against the state, giving police more powers and carrying life prison sentences for some offenses.
