Calum MacLeod

USA TODAY

BEIJING — Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents marched for democracy Tuesday in a show of growing dissatisfaction with the city's leaders and the growing influence of China's authoritarian rulers. Police arrested more than 500 people holding an overnight sit-in after the rally.

Organizers led the march from Hong Kong's Victoria Park to the central business district. Some campaign groups vowed to hold overnight "sit-ins."

Police estimated the throng at almost 100,000, while organizers put the total at more than 500,000.

Police said 511 people were arrested Wednesday for unlawful assembly and preventing police from carrying out their duties. They were holding an overnight sit-in after the rally.

The peaceful crowds carried banners and posters urging democracy as they marched in sweltering heat through skyscraper-lined streets to the financial district. Some chanted, "Our own government, our own choice," while others called for the city's leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, to step down.

Some groups along the protest route sang a Cantonese version of Do You Hear the People Sing? from the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables. The song has become an anthem for Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.

Tuesday's rally commemorated the day in 1997 when the capitalist enclave and former British colony was returned to communist Chinese rule under a "one country, two systems" arrangement that preserves political liberties restricted on the mainland, such as holding public protests.

The day of protest began with members of the League of Social Democrats burning a picture of Leung and saying Beijing had lied about Hong Kong keeping a high degree of autonomy from the mainland, according to the South China Morning Post. At a morning ceremony, Leung told Hong Kong to treasure its economic success and warned that instability would affect prosperity, reported Xinhua, China's state news agency.

This year's event follows an informal referendum by Occupy Central, a pro-democracy group, which drew almost 800,000 people, or one-fifth of the city's registered voters. In a push for suffrage, the civil referendum asked voters to choose one of three options for choosing the chief executive in the elections in 2017.

Though all three options involve public nomination of candidates, Beijing insists that only a committee of 1,200 pro-Beijing loyalists can make the nominations.

In the run-up to the Occupy referendum, China's State Council issued a policy "white paper" that emphasized Beijing's authority and "comprehensive jurisdiction" over the territory.

"After seeing the white paper's content, we should be worried," said Jeff Kwok, 28, as he waited at the rally's starting point in Victoria Park. "The central government, they're trying to tell the Hong Kong people that they are the host country and Hong Kong is just one of their regions. They're trying to tell us they have absolute power to rule us."

Benny Tai, a law professor at Hong Kong University and one of the referendum's organizers, said Chinese authorities tried to disrupt the vote by ordering cyberattacks by mainland hackers. Those attacks showed Beijing is determined to suppress democratic moves in China, Tai said, but the referendum highlighted Hong Kong's potential influence.

"If Hong Kong can develop (its) own universal suffrage election system, then in the long run, other parts of China may get inspiration on how to run an election system in line with universal values," Tai told USA TODAY last month.

"But in the short term, I don't see the introduction of universal suffrage in Hong Kong will immediately raise expectations or demands in mainland China," Tai said.

Contributing: The Associated Press