Hong Kong police stop commemorating Tiananmen victims

Hongkong As in the previous two years, a candlelight vigil on the anniversary of the bloody crackdown on June 4, 1989 was prohibited. Police officers patrolled and cordoned off Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on Saturday. For a long time, the special administrative region was the only place in China where the victims of the Tiananmen massacre could be commemorated. Tens of thousands of people usually took part in the big candle service in Victoria Park. In the summer of 2020, however, Beijing introduced a harsh security law for Hong Kong – since then the vigil has not been allowed. After weeks of demonstrations and hunger strikes against corruption and for freedom of expression and democracy in the spring of 1989, the communist leadership called in the People’s Liberation Army to put an end to the protests in Beijing. The military action, which killed several hundred people, is a politically taboo topic in China. The Chinese leadership does not allow public discussion or commemoration of the anniversary. Unlike China, democratic Taiwan commemorated the victims. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen lamented the lack of an official vigil in Hong Kong on Saturday. Memories of the crackdown are being systematically removed from society’s collective memory, she wrote on Facebook.