Activists detained; Hong Kong holds vigil
Protesters, mourners commemorate 1989 event in which hundreds were killed
Police detained at least 11 Chinese activists after a pair of small events to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, according to human rights groups and activists.
Meanwhile, thousands gathered in Hong Kong for the annual candlelight vigil to remember the events of June 4, 1989, which have gained added poignancy in recent years in view of a continuing struggle for democracy there.
Tiananmen Square and the rest of Beijing are habitually placed under tight security for the anniversary, but activist Li Xiaoling apparently had her photograph taken at the square in the early hours of June 4. In it, she is holding up a sign bearing an image of her with a patch over her left eye, after an operation last month for injuries allegedly inflicted by police.
Li and fellow activists Li Zhou and Pu Yongzhu were taken to the Xicheng police station in Beijing, Amnesty International and human rights activists said.
Activists also commemorated the anniversary in Zhuzhou in southern Hunan province, taking photographs such as the one below, in which they form the Chinese characters for six and four, marking the sixth month and fourth day, the date of the crackdown.
At least eight members of the group have been taken away by police, while at least two are unreachable, according to activists and rights groups.
Tens of thousands of troops and tanks converged on Tiananmen Square to quash months of protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989. Several hundred people were killed — possibly several thousand — and more than 1,600 people nationwide were subsequently jailed. The final prisoner, Miao Deshun, a factory worker from Beijing, was released in October, with serious mental and physical health problems.
Despite those tiny protests, few young Chinese people appear to have much knowledge or even interest in the events of June 4, 1989, according to Louisa Lim, author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. That has followed nearly three decades of propaganda and censorship by the Communist Party aimed at suppressing and rewriting history.
“Those who do know about it tend to be largely supportive of the crackdown, because they believe this prevailing view that the party did what was necessary to ensure stability and that stability has paved the way for the country’s three decades of economic development,” she said.
It is a very different story in Hong Kong, where tens of thousands gather every year to commemorate the crackdown. The self-governing territory had its own uprising for greater democracy in 2014, known as the Umbrella Movement, which failed to induce any concessions from the governments in Hong Kong or Beijing.
There was also a small commemoration in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, which started to move from martial law to democracy in the 1980s and held its first democratic presidential election in 1996. Its president, Tsai Ingwen, said in a statement Sunday that the actions of the Chinese students and citizens in 1989 had “inspired a generation.”