Defiant Opposition Groups Call For Protest Rally

Pro-democracy figures are encouraging the public to take part in an anti-national security law rally that is expected to start on Wednesday afternoon in Causeway Bay.

The rally has been banned by the police, but the deputy convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, Figo Chan, said that the group would continue to march anyway under the theme "oppose the national security law, uphold the five demands", and urged others to join them and express how they fell about the law.

Chan said he's aware that the consequences and risk of arrest are serious, but said he hopes the public would not be afraid to speak, otherwise they will lose their freedom and rights.

Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai said people must peacefully take to the streets in order to protect Hong Kong's core values.

"We can all see that if we accept the national security act and [in] our response [is] that we keep silent, then I will say tomorrow is the last day of Hong Kong too," Wu said.

"I hope people can understand that if you want to keep our core values, if we want to keep the fight to protest against the national security act, ... we have to protest against it," he said.

"No matter how hard or how difficult the situation ... we’d like to see people can keep using a peaceful way to demonstrate our views that we will keep fighting until the last moment."

"Today we have no One Country, Two Systems, it's now One Country, One Systems, and we're no different than the Greater Bay Area or Shenzhen," said the League of Social Democrats' Tsang Kin-shing.

Tsang also accused Chief Executive Carrie Lam of selling out Hong Kong, and called on her to resign.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party said it will hand out anti-security law leaflets at its street booths on Wednesday despite its passage, saying they should not limit their freedom of speech.

The party will set up stations on Hong Kong Island for its raffle fundraiser.

Lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting questioned if there's room for civic engagement if the government banned the campaign which it had approved.