Riot police disperse anti-government demonstrators during a lunch time protest in Central, as a second reading of a controversial national anthem law takes place in Hong Kong | via Tyrone Siu, Reuters READ:
Hong Kong police placed a dragnet around the financial hub's legislature on Wednesday and fired pepper-ball rounds in the commercial district as they tried to stamp out protests against a bill banning insults to China's national anthem.
Police surrounded the legislature with water-filled barriers and fanned out across the city to conduct widespread stop-and-search operations in a bid to deter mass gatherings. But in recent years political unrest has swept through the city, something Beijing's communist rulers are determined to end. Addressing concerns that the law would damage free speech, Cheung used a Chinese idiom often translated as "making a mountain out of a molehill."
The city's pro-Beijing faction seized control of the committee earlier this month-- a move opponents said was unconstitutional.
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