Hong Kong Police Warn Against Congregations To Remember Tiananmen Square Protest

The tradition of an annual candlelit vigil ended after a stringent national security law was enacted in 2020.

Image used for representational purposes only.

(Photo: ifj.org)

Hong Kong police have issued a stark warning that people will risk breaking the law if they congregate on Saturday, 4 June, to remember China’s crackdown at Tiananmen Square on the same date in 1989.

The crackdown is internationally known as the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Any discussion of the 4 June 1989 has been forbidden in Mainland China. Hong Kong, however, exercised its semi-autonomous system to allow an annual candlelight vigil for the victims at Victoria Park, the largest public park on the island.

That ended after the national security law was enacted in 2020.

With respect to this year's potential gatherings, senior superintendent Liauw Ka-kei said on Thursday, "When there are other people there, and you share a common goal to express some appeals, that’s already sufficient to make you a member of an unlawful assembly," as reported by The Guardian.

Peaceful pro-democracy protests by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square ended on 3 and 4 June 1989 when more than 2,00,000 troops were sent by the communist regime (led at the time by Deng Xiaoping) to suppress what they accused of being a counter-revolutionary riot.

Hundreds and thousands of protesters were killed in the crackdown.

(With inputs from The Guardian and Reuters.)