Hong Kong - Thousands of pro-democracy protestors marched to the Hong Kong government's central offices Tuesday calling for universal suffrage for Hong Kong as well as marking the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.

The march, which coincided with the 11th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997, was held in silence this year to remember the victims of May's Sichuan earthquake which killed about 80,000 people.

March organisers were hoping about 50,000 people would attend this year's rally, which has been held every year in Hong Kong since the 1989 Beijing massacre when thousands of unarmed students and workers were killed after Chinese troops opened fire.

But police said only around 13,000 attended the event, which also called for direct elections in Hong Kong and other livelihood issues.

The Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the protest, said the demonstration was held in silence.

Albert Ho, vice-chairman of the alliance, said: "While realising the earthquake is a natural disaster, there is also an element of human blunder in it - namely, substandard construction of schools, causing thousands of lives of children (to be lost). So we should learn to eliminate human blunder, and to that end we should establish a democratic system and the rule of law to ensure that corruption is under check and that people could have a voice in supervising our government."

Speaking before the march, Cardinal Joseph Zen, the head of Hong Kong's Catholic Church, said universal suffrage is still a distant dream for Hong Kong. He added that the government had failed to address livelihood issues such as poverty, and called for greater democracy.

Responding to the pro-democracy calls, the Hong Kong government reiterated the timetable for implementing universal suffrage was to directly elect the government chief executive in 2017. Direct elections for the Legislative Council, the territory's mini-parliament, would be held in 2020.

A government spokesman added that on social issues, the government was "deeply concerned about the impact of the recent rise in inflation on various segments of the community, especially on the livelihoods of lower income households."

He said that budgetary measures will be introduced soon that "should help to alleviate the inflationary pressure on households in the latter part of this year." (dpa)