Crowds rally in Hong Kong after activists jailed

Hong Kong : Thousands of supporters of three jailed young democracy activists took to the streets in Hong Kong Sunday to protest their sentences.

Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow, leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement rallies, were sentenced to six to eight months in jail Thursday for their role in a protest that sparked the months-long demonstrations calling for democratic reforms.

People took on the scorching summer heat to stream from the district of Wan Chai to the Court of Final Appeal in the heart of Hong Kong Island, protesting the jail terms.

They held signs including: "Give back hope to my children" and "One prisoner of conscience is one too many".

Organisers gave no immediate estimate of numbers, while police said 22,000 attended the event at its peak, making it Hong Kong's biggest march since the Umbrella Movement rallies.

William Cheung, an engineer in his 40s, described the ruling as "the beginning of white terror" in Hong Kong.

"These young people are our hope for the future. We shouldn't treat them like this," Jackson Wai, a retired teacher in his 70s, told AFP as he teared up.

Rights groups and activists called the case against the trio "political persecution" and more evidence that an assertive Beijing is tightening its grip on the semi-autonomous city.

The Beijing-backed Hong Kong government brought the case for harsher sentences against the three, saying previous non-custodial terms were too light and did not serve as a deterrent to activists undermining stability.

University student Ann Lee said the government's efforts to overturn the previous sentences were "attempts to intimidate us from taking part in acts of resistance."

Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland after being handed back to China in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" deal, but there are growing fears Beijing is trampling the agreement.