Several non-governmental organizations and individuals staged a demonstration and distributed anti-WTO information when the opening ceremony of the Sixth Ministerial Conference (MC6) of the World Trade Organization was held in Hong Kong Tuesday afternoon.

The demonstration started at about 13:30 p.m. (Hong Kong time) at the Victoria Park and people of protest groups reached the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, venue of the MC6, at about 15:00 p.m.

The demonstrators, numbering more than 5,000, came from South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines and some African and European countries, with about 2,000 being farmers from South Korea.

South Korean farmers claimed that the globalization of neo- liberalism has increased the pains of people worldwide. The market expansion of the transnational corporations has made many farmers lose their farm lands and water resources and the farmers are on the verge of famine, the protestors said.

They said many people could not afford to seek the treatment of AIDS, bird flu and some other diseases popular in the poverty- stricken countries.

They said they believed that the globalization has widened the gap between the rich and the poor, which may trigger wars and violent acts.

Part of the demonstrators tried to ram through a Police roadblock for entering a "forbidden zone" near the exhibition center.

The demonstrators threw bamboo sticks and water bottles at riot police and the police blocked them with pepper spray.

This is the second anti-WTO demonstration held in Hong Kong within a week. On Sunday, thousands of anti-globalization and anti- WTO people held a demonstration to oppose the MC6.

Source: Xinhua