34th Anniversary of Tiananmen | Several pro-democracy figures arrested in Hong Kong

(Hong Kong) Hong Kong police on Sunday arrested several pro-democracy figures, including an opposition party leader, on the 34^e anniversary of the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

This weekend, the police took up position in force in Victoria Park and its surroundings to question anyone suspected of taking part in any form of public commemoration of the events of June 4, 1989.

The leader of an opposition party in Hong Kong, the League of Social Democrats, Chan Po-ying, held a small LED candle — a prop often used at vigils commemorating June 4, 1989 — and two flowers. The police immediately arrested her before boarding her in a van.

67-year-old Alexandra Wong, a pro-democracy activist better known as “Mamie Wong”, was also arrested in the late afternoon as she waved her bouquet of flowers in the air, just like the journalist and former president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Mak Yin-ting.

Another woman was also arrested after she shouted “Raise candles!” Cry on 4/6! », in reference to June 4, 1989, the date of the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing.

In total, at least ten people were arrested, according to AFP journalists present at the scene.

Dressed in black, a young man was carrying the book entitled “May 35” at the time of his arrest, another way of referring to the Tiananmen events that took place four days after May 31.

After being briefly interrogated, searched and then released, a woman told AFP with a shrug: “Everyone knows what day it is today”.

Saturday, the eve of the 34^e anniversary of Tiananmen, Hong Kong police had already arrested four people for “disorderly conduct on public roads” and “acts for seditious purposes”, and four others for “disturbing public order”.

Silence all dissent

For more than 30 years, tens of thousands of people have gathered each year in Victoria Park in Hong Kong for a candlelight vigil in memory of the victims of Beijing’s Tiananmen.

But in 2020 Beijing imposed a national security law in the former British colony to muzzle any dissent after the gigantic pro-democracy demonstrations of 2019.

Hong Kong authorities have since ended vigils that were never allowed in mainland China.

This year, the giant park gathering in the central Causeway Bay district has been replaced by a trade fair devoted to products from mainland China and organized until Monday by pro-Beijing groups to celebrate the 26^e anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China.

“Hong Kong is a different city today,” said Mr.^me Wong, 53, who agrees to give only his surname, while praising the Pro-Chinese fair.

Hong Kong, returned to China by the United Kingdom in 1997, was thus for a long time the only Chinese city to organize a candlelight vigil in memory of Tiananmen.

It was also a key indicator of the freedoms and political pluralism conferred on it by its status as a semi-autonomous territory.

Erase the memory

In mainland China, all traces of the Tiananmen events have been erased by the authorities.

History textbooks do not mention it, online discussions on this subject are systematically censored.

This is evidenced by the misadventure of the British Embassy in Beijing, which published on Sunday on social networks a front page dated June 4, 1989 from People’s Dailythe official propaganda organ of the Chinese Communist Party, which described the influx of the wounded into hospitals following the crackdown.

“Within twenty minutes, the censors deleted our post from Weibo [réseau social chinois] the British Embassy tweeted on Sunday.

This year, Chinese police also monitored several landmarks of the rare anti-Xi Jinping regime that erupted last fall.

A large police force was thus deployed around the Sitong Bridge in Beijing, the scene of a demonstration at the end of November where a banner demanding more freedom had been unrolled.

In Hong Kong, most of the figures of the pro-democracy movement have been arrested or have taken refuge abroad since the entry into force of a law on national security.

This is particularly the case of the leaders of the association which organized the vigil of Victoria Park, Hong Kong Alliance.

However, the authorities still seemed to be on high alert in the face of possible expressions of dissent.

” Assume the consequences ”

The city’s chief executive, John Lee, has warned that every Hong Kong resident should obey the law and be “ready to face the consequences” if they break them.

Elsewhere in the world, commemorations of June 4 will take place in Japan, Sydney, New York and London where a re-enactment of the events of Tiananmen will be held in Trafalgar Square.

In Taiwan, a play by Hong Kong author Candace Chong, entitled “May 35”, will also be performed this Sunday in a theater in the capital.

“History and memory will not be easily erased,” said Hong Konger Sky Fung, secretary general of the Taipei-based NGO Hong Kong Outlanders. “The spark is still in our hearts.”