About 7,600 people -- not the 20,000 claimed by organizers -- took to the streets last Sunday to protest against the interpretation of the Basic Law annexes by the country's top legislature, the government said Tuesday.

The number, calculated by a professional research organization, is also lower than the police's previous release of 10,000.

A government spokesman said that the Central Policy Unit has commissioned the organization to gauge the number of protesters in rallies. The aim is to gain more accurate estimates of the number of people who wish to express their views on major issues in demonstrations.

"Because the estimated number of participants in processions compiled by the organizers has always been very different from that made by the police, the government has commissioned a professional research organization to obtain a more accurate count," said the spokesman.

The government did not specify the name of the appointed institution. It said the released figure of the police was purely an internal estimate for crowd-control purposes.

The procession on Sunday, organized by the Civil Human Rights Front, set off from Chater Garden and ended at the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong.

The research organization set up two survey stations at the Hang Seng Bank Headquarters Building flyover on Des Voeux Road Central and the flyover on Connaught Road West respectively. Each station has one statistics supervisor, three survey assistants and two support staff.

The supervisor at each station collected data every 15 minutes from 3:45 pm to 5 pm, and reported the data to the co-ordination centre. The centre calculated an average figure and arrived at an estimated number of participants during a specified period.

The average maximum number of participants recorded at the Hang Seng Bank Headquarters Building flyover and the Connaught Road West flyover were 7,492 and 7,762 respectively. The data collected at the two stations was used to compile an average figure and the total number of participants was estimated at 7,627.

The spokesman said the government would decide on a case-by-case basis whether to commission a professional research organization to conduct a survey of the number of people participating in public processions in the future.

(China Daily HK Edition April 14, 2004)