Fresh political violence broke out in Hong Kong on Sunday night as riot police baton-charged anti-government protesters seeking to keep the pressure up on the city's pro-Beijing leaders, after a mass rally outside a train station linking the finance hub to mainland China.

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

Sunday's clashes came hours after the first demonstration since young, masked protesters stormed parliament on Monday, plunging the city into an unprecedented crisis.

The extradition bill has been suspended following the backlash.

But that has done little to quell public anger, which has evolved into a wider movement calling for democratic reforms and a halt to sliding freedoms in the semi-autonomous city.

Earlier on Sunday tens of thousands of people snaked through streets in the harbour-front district of Tsim Sha Tsui, an area popular with Chinese tourists, ending their march at a high-speed train terminus that connects to the mainland.

The march was billed as an opportunity to explain to mainlanders in the city what their protest movement is about given the massive censorship that Beijing's leaders wield.

It passed without incident.

But late Sunday police wielding batons and shields charged protesters to disperse a few hundreds demonstrators who had refused to leave.

AFP reporters saw multiple demonstrators detained by police after the fracas, their wrists bound with plastic handcuffs.

By early Monday only pockets of demontrators remained with police occupying key intersections around the protest area.

The scene of the clashes -- Mongkok -- is a densely-packed working class district, which has previosuly hosted running battles between police and anti-government protesters in 2014 and 2016.

- Bluetooth and Simplified Chinese -

Hong Kong enjoys rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech, protected by a deal made before the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997. But there are growing fears those liberties are being eroded.

Sunday's clashes marred what had been an otherwise peaceful day of mass rallies aimed at reaching out to mainland Chinese visitors.

Organisers said 230,000 people marched while police said 56,000 attended at the peak.

"We want to show tourists, including mainland China tourists what is happening in Hong Kong and we hope they can take this concept back to China," Eddison Ng, an 18-year-old demonstrator, told AFP.

Hong Kongers speak Cantonese but protesters used Bluetooth to send leaflets in Mandarin -- the predominant language on the mainland -- to nearby phones, hoping to spread the word to mainlanders.

"Why are there still so many people coming out to protest now?" one man said in Mandarin through a loudspeaker. "Because the Hong Kong government didn't listen to our demands."

Many protest banners were written with the Simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland, not the Traditional Chinese system used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Protesters are demanding the postponed extradition 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.

Beijing has thrown its full support behind the embattled Lam, calling on Hong Kong police to pursue anyone involved in the parliament storming and other clashes.

Sunday's protest began on the waterfront -- the first time a rally has taken place off the main island -- and made its way to West Kowloon, a recently opened multi-billion-dollar station that links to China's high-speed rail network.

The terminus is controversial because Chinese law operates in the parts of the station dealing with immigration and customs, as well as the platforms, even though West Kowloon is kilometres from the border.

Critics say that move gave away part of the city's territory to an increasingly assertive Beijing.

Under Hong Kong's mini-constitution China's national laws do not apply to the city apart from in limited areas, including defence.

But many say the relationship is changing.

Among recent watershed moments critics point to are the disappearance into mainland custody of dissident booksellers, the disqualification of prominent politicians, the de facto expulsion of a foreign journalist and the jailing of democracy protest leaders.

Protests pile pressure on Hong Kong's already-stressed youth
Hong Kong (AFP) July 7, 2019 - Hong Kong's protests have ratcheted up already high stress levels among young people as they despair for their future under Beijing's heel in a city where anger has long simmered over inequality and sky-high property prices, experts warn.

The international financial hub has been rocked by a month of huge peaceful protests as well as a series of separate violent youth-led confrontations sparked by a proposed law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.

Compared to the huge optimism-tinged pro-democracy "Umbrella Movement" rallies in 2014, the recent protests have been darker and more desperate, culminating in the storming of parliament last Monday by hundreds of young, masked demonstrators.

The movement has also taken on a distinctly funereal tone, publicly mourning at least four people who have taken their own lives in recent weeks after leaving political messages.

Experts stress that most suicides have complex, multiple triggers and have warned that depicting the four as "martyrs" to the protestors' cause risks encouraging copycat acts.

An army of social workers, counsellors and other volunteers have mobilised across the city to address a spike in demand for mental health services.

"These students are gambling their youth to defend this place, it's very fragile," said Roy Kwong, a pro-democracy lawmaker with a social work background who has been praised for trying to keep demonstrators from harm.

Winnie Ng, a counsellor and drama therapy practitioner who has volunteered in recent weeks, said many young Hong Kongers were under huge stresses before the latest protests.

She pointed to huge inequality in the cramped city, the world's most unaffordable property market, a pro-Beijing local government that has faced down demands for greater freedoms and the failure of the 2014 protests.

"I personally think when everything in life is related to politics, it pushes life in Hong Kong into a very dejected state," Ng told AFP. "Many people really can't see hope".

Data points to an uptick in calls for help. The Samaritans told South China Morning Post that calls to its line were up five times in the last month.

Support platform Open Up said some days had seen spikes of 200 and 450 text messages seeking help during the protests compared to its usual average of 60-80, local newspaper Ming Pao reported.

- 'Last straw' -

Paul Yip, director of the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong, said the extradition bill was "just the last straw to kill the camel" and that the youth despair currently on display was "like an eruption of a volcano".

The suicides have been an especially troubling phenomenon, with shrines popping up at the locations where they happened and regular vigils.

But Yip warned against linking the deaths solely to politics.

"Studies have shown that people who killed themselves had suffered from multiple and interacting causes," he told AFP.

He said the tributes and memorials offered ways for people to express their emotions, which they should not suppress. But he warned that rhetoric characterising deaths by suicide as heroism or martyrdom risks other students taking their own lives.

After weeks of remaining silent on the issue, Hong Kong's government addressed the recent suicides on Friday evening with chief secretary Matthew Cheung saying they would mobilise NGOs to devote more time and resources to combating youth depression.

"We realise that many people are feeling unhappy at this present moment," he told reporters.

Hong Kong's suicide rate is around 12 per 100,000 -- higher than the World Health Organization's average for mainland China at eight per 100,000.

- 'Everyone counts' -

Amid the despairing tone of the recent protests, the city has also embraced open discussions of mental health, an often delicate subject in the largely conservative culture.

Two slogans -- "Every one of us counts" and "We go up and down together" -- have become rallying cries for mental health awareness.

Hong Kong enjoys rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech, protected by a deal made before the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997. But there are growing fears those liberties are being eroded.

Among recent watershed moments critics point to are the disappearance into mainland custody of dissident booksellers, the disqualification of prominent politicians, the de facto expulsion of a foreign journalist and the jailing of democracy protest leaders.

A government push to integrate Hong Kong further into mainland China has also led many to feel the city's unique Cantonese language and culture is being undermined.

Shai Dromi, a cultural and comparative-historical sociologist at Harvard University, said collective trauma is often tied to the loss of group identity.

"It really touches on fears of not being able to practise one's culture, one's rights, one's religion," he said.

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