Tiananmen vigil stifled but HK activists say history ‘not erased’

With heavy police presence in the heart of Hong Kong having all but snuffed out any commemoration of the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Kit and a few hundred others hoped on Friday to find sanctuary in a blue-collar neighbourhood.

Rosary in hand, the 37-year-old social worker joined a queue that started snaking around St Francis of Assisi’s Church, as early as two hours before the memorial mass.

“It feels like a pilgrimage to me,” said Kit, who declined to give her surname. “People here still have the means to remember. The police’s action doesn’t erase what happened.”

On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government deployed armed troops to crush a student-led protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. At least hundreds of pro-democracy protesters and bystanders, if not more, are believed to have been killed.

For 30 years since the incident, Hong Kong has held a mass candlelight vigil for all those who perished without any interference from authorities.

But for the second year in a row, just as Beijing drastically tightened control over the freedoms of speech and assembly in Hong Kong, the gathering in the semi-autonomous territory was banned, ostensibly due to coronavirus restrictions.

Of the few thousands who defied last year’s ban and gatecrashed into the city’s central park to hold the vigil, 26 of them, mostly prominent pro-democracy figures, have since been charged with taking part in the unauthorised rally. Last month, student leader Joshua Wong was given a 10-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking part in last year’s vigil.

Following the imposition by Beijing last June of the National Security Law, which criminalises activities deemed to be secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces, Hong Kong Secretary for Security John Lee warned that anyone who breached this year’s ban may risk a maximum sentence of five years.

Of the few thousands who defied last year’s ban and gatecrashed into the city’s central park to hold the vigil, 26 of them, mostly prominent pro-democracy figures, have since been charged with taking part in the unauthorised rally. Last month, student leader Joshua Wong was given a 10-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking part in last year’s vigil.

Following the imposition by Beijing last June of the National Security Law, which criminalises activities deemed to be secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces, Hong Kong Secretary for Security John Lee warned that anyone who breached this year’s ban may risk a maximum sentence of five years.

But as a new generation has grown up alienated from the mainland, the young people chafe at the alliance’s twinning of Chinese patriotism and Hong Kong’s own fight for democracy. In recent years, many student activists tended to boycott the alliance’s vigil.

As a freshman in 2016, Jerry Yuen was one of them. But after one of his best friends and fellow activists was among those charged and has since fled overseas into exile, Yuen, 23, has had a change of heart. A few days ago, he posted a video online rallying his peers to keep up the collective remembrance.

Calling the annual commemoration “Hong Kongers’ political custom”, Yuen said: “What I care the most is whether we’ll still put up a fight.”