As many as 180,000 people would gather to light candles in #Victoria#Park to remember June 4th 1989,
when China’s army brought a bloody end to weeks of peaceful pro-democracy protests in Beijing.
(China has never put a figure on the number who died in what it terms a counter-revolutionary incident.)
Hong Kong’s vigils became a symbol of #defiance of mainland authority
and an ardent evocation of the city’s #independence.
“It was magnificent,” says one resident. “We wanted to make [the massacre] known, not just in Hong Kong, but throughout the world.”
🔥 Organising such a vigil would be unthinkable now.
The commemoration was #banned in 2020, ostensibly because of covid-19.
Some 20,000 people gathered anyway.
The following month the central government in Beijing imposed a draconian national-security law on the territory,
a response to large pro-democracy protests in 2019.
The authorities have since snuffed out memories of Tiananmen.
Memorials have been removed.
The commemoration’s organisers have been jailed;
-- in March they lost a bid to overturn their conviction.
Wearing black or lighting candles near Victoria Park on June 4th may now be considered criminal activity.
This year, like the last, the park is filled with food trucks instead of candles.
Pro-Beijing groups have organised a carnival in the vigil’s stead.