In Hong Kong, thousands of anti-government protesters began a march today that will end outside a controversial train station linking the territory to the Chinese mainland, as activists try to keep pressure on the city’s pro-Beijing leaders.

The rally is the first major large-scale protest since last Monday’s unprecedented storming of parliament by largely young, masked protesters — a move which plunged the international financial hub further into crisis.

Hong Kong has been rocked by a month of huge marches as well as a series of separate violent confrontations with police, sparked by a law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.

Thousands mustered at the rally’s start this afternoon at a park in Tsim Sha Tsui, a harbourfront district of the city popular with Chinese tourists.Organisers have billed the march as an opportunity to explain to Chinese mainlanders in the city what the protest movement is about.

Protesters are demanding the bill be scrapped entirely, an independent inquiry into police use of tear gas and rubber bullets, amnesty for those arrested, and for the city’s unelected leader Carrie Lam to step down. Sunday’s protest plans to end at West Kowloon, a recently opened multi-billion-dollar station that links to China’s high-speed rail network.

Police had placed the glass and steel structure in virtual lockdown as fears of further clashes soared despite protest organisers vowing to hold a peaceful rally.