China silences Hong Kong Tiananmen memorial
Crackdown a sign of Beijing’s tightening grip on the former British colony
Police arrested an organiser of Hong Kong’s annual candlelight vigil remembering the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown and warned people not to attend the banned event yesterday as authorities mute China’s last prodemocracy voices.
In past years, tens of thousands of people gathered in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to honour the victims who died when China’s military put down student-led prodemocracy protests on June 4, 1989, killing hundreds if not thousands.
China’s ruling Communist Party has never allowed public events marking the military’s attack on protesters and citizens, and security was increased in the Beijing square yesterday, with police checking pedestrians’ IDs and tour buses shuttling Chinese tourists as on any other day.
Authorities have squelched all discussion of the events on the mainland, where the few remaining activists and victims’ advocates are put under increased police monitoring and taken away on involuntary “vacations” around the anniversary. Responding to a question about the crackdown, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Thursday reiterated China’s stance that its response to the “political turmoil” of 1989 had been correct.
Efforts to suppress public memory of the Tiananmen events have lately turned to Hong Kong, where the June 4 Museum was closed this week and police again yesterday warned residents not to attend the vigil.
The nighttime event in Victoria Park has been banned for a second year under coronavirus pandemic restrictions. But the action comes amid sweeping moves to quell dissent in the city, including a new national security law, election changes and arrests of many activists who participated in pro-democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019.
Law Kwok-hoi, senior superintendent of the Hong Kong police force, reminded residents the event was banned. Taking part in an illegal gathering has a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
Law also told reporters police had arrested a 36-year-old woman from the Hong Kong Alliance, as well as a 20-year-old food delivery man for advertising and publicising an unauthorised assembly on their social media accounts even after the vigil was banned.
Chow Hang Tung, vice-chair of the group, was arrested yesterday morning, according to the alliance, which organised the vigil and ran the June 4 Museum dedicated to remembering Tiananmen.
After the ban was issued, Chow urged people to commemorate the event privately by lighting a candle wherever they are.
Last year, thousands went to Victoria Park to light candles and sing songs in remembrance despite the ban.
Police later charged more than 20 activists including Chow for their participation in the unauthorised assembly.
Two other key members of the Hong Kong Alliance — Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho — are behind bars for their participation in separate unauthorised assemblies in 2019.
Chow, a barrister, said in an earlier interview with the Associated Press that she was expecting to be imprisoned at some point for her activism. She has been part of the Hong Kong Alliance since 2010.
“I’m already being persecuted for participating and inciting last year’s candlelight vigil,” she said.
“If I continue my activism in pushing for democracy in Hong Kong and China, surely they will come after me at some point, so it’s sort of expected.”
As Chinese authorities seek to curb remembrances, they also seem confident the passage of time will erase memories of the 1989 crackdown.
The Government made no response to an appeal from Tiananmen Mothers, published on the Human Rights in China website, urging the party to release official records about the crackdown, provide compensation for those killed and injured, and hold those responsible to account.
Tiananmen Mothers said 62 of its members have died since the group representing victims’ relatives was founded in the late 1990s. It said many young Chinese have “grown up in a false sense of prosperous jubilance and enforced glorification of the Government [and] have no idea of or refuse to believe what happened on June 4, 1989, in the nation’s capital.”
The suppression of commemorations of the Tiananmen victims has been accompanied in recent years by harsh repression against religious and ethnic minorities in Tibet, the northwestern region of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, along with the sharp curtailing of political rights in Hong Kong.
“China’s authoritarian regime has used another kind of force — enforced amnesia — in its attempts to bury the truth of the brutal crimes it committed against its people,” Human Rights in China said in a statement online.
On self-governing Taiwan, activists who host an annual Tiananmen memorial that draws hundreds are moving mostly online as the island faces its worst virus outbreak of the pandemic.
The New School for Democracy, an NGO, was setting up a temporary memorial pavilion last night where people in small groups could leave flowers and other mementoes in honour of the date.
The United States State Department issued a statement of support for those advocating for victims and pursuing the truth about the events.
“The courage of the brave individuals who stood shoulder-to-shoulder on June 4 reminds us that we must never stop seeking transparency on the events of that day, including a full accounting of all those killed, detained, or missing,” the statement said, adding that such demands echoed in the struggle for political rights in Hong Kong.