Telegraph.co.uk
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Tens
of thousands of people flocked to an outdoor vigil in Hong Kong on
Wednesday night to mark 25 years since the Communist Party's brutal
crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Tiananmen? What Tiananmen? Beijing keeps lid on protests
Thousands gather in Hong Kong to remember Tiananmen killings
Crowds pack Hong Kong's Victoria Park to demand the truth about the Tiananmen crackdown 25 years ago and to call for an end to an assault on Communist Party critics that many view as the worst since 1989
A candle light vigil was held at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to mark the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests Photo: GETTY
Tens of thousands of people flocked to an outdoor vigil in Hong
Kong on Wednesday night to mark 25 years since the Communist Party's
brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
As Chinese security forces fought to extinguish any attempt to commemorate the
landmark anniversary in Beijing, demonstrators streamed into Hong Kong's
Victoria Park to remember the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people killed
when troops were ordered to clear protesters from Tiananmen Square on June 3
and 4, 1989.
The protesters came bearing banners, photographs of the dead and a message for
China's rulers.
Organisers say the turnout was more than 180,000, which would be a record,
while Hong Kong police say it was just under 100,000.
"We have not forgotten," said Andrew Shum, a 27-year-old NGO worker
who was attending the annual candlelit vigil for the 14th time. "The
government must investigate what happened in Beijing and why."
For HK$80 Mr Shum was selling T-shirts that could earn you a prison sentence
in mainland China, including one featuring the slogan: "Our government,
our choice". "We can still say what we think in Hong Kong. That is
why we need to come here every year," he said.
Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy politician and one of the vigil's organisers, said: "Tonight is a struggle of remembrance over forgetting, of truth versus lies."
"The Chinese Communist Party has been spreading lies about the 1989 democracy movement and trying to eradicate its memory from history," he told The Telegraph.
Throughout the afternoon, demonstrators from both semi-autonomous Hong Kong and mainland China, where public commemoration of the crackdown remains strictly forbidden, braved scorching temperatures to flock to Victoria Park.
They were greeted by a replica of the "Goddess of Democracy" statue that was erected in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and banners that read: "Rectify the June 4th Verdict" and "Fight Until The Very End".
One poster featured a cartoon of Xi Jinping, China's president, and the caption: "Protest against the Communist Party's frenzied campaign of arrests. Release the dissidents immediately".
Wreaths of white lilies and bouquets of chrysanthemums had been placed around a replica of Tiananmen Square's Monument to the People's Heroes, around which protesters camped in the weeks before the 1989 massacre. "End one-party dictatorship," read one tribute placed there.
"The students did not attack the government or the army but the Chinese government used tanks and guns against them. It is unacceptable," said Raymond Lam, an 18-year-old journalism student who was attending his first vigil.
"I deeply appreciate what the students did in 1989," said Jeffrey Lao, a 21-year-old student from Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology. "Unfortunately some of them were killed and those who survived are kept silent or in prison."
Kin Tse, a 27-year-old labour activist, said: "We are fighting for a common goal: for democracy in China. June 4 is a cornerstone of the fight for democracy."
Activists were no longer just protesting a lack of democracy in mainland China, Mr Kin added. They were increasingly alarmed about the erosion of such rights in Hong Kong, "especially press freedom".
Academics and activists have flown into Hong Kong from around the world to attend commemorations of the 25th anniversary. However, with Beijing currently waging what many describe as its harshest crackdown on critics since 1989, an air of despondence has hung over their meetings.
"This is a discouraging time," Jerome Cohen, a veteran China expert and law professor at the New York University School of Law, told a seminar here on Tuesday. "The situation with respect to freedoms of association, speech, religion – all the basic freedoms – seems to be getting worse despite all the economic and social progress."
Attempts by Xi Jinping, China's president, to centralise power, "reminds me of what Stalin did after Lenin's demise," Prof Cohen added. "We see something that really is beginning to look ugly."
Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China, said the last twelve months had seen a "tremendous deterioration, perhaps the worst human rights situation that we have had in China since 1989".
However, the emergence of an active and vocal civil society provided some hope of change in the longer-term.
"If you look a little further out you are seeing these other very powerful processes already in place and I actually don't think the Chinese Communist Party can stop those developments. They just can't," she said.
The Communist Party's obsession with control was on full show on Wednesday in Beijing, where the illusion of a normal day was enforced by one of the largest security operations since the Tiananmen era itself.
On Chang'an avenue, where the tanks rolled into the square 25 years ago, police teams were stationed every hundred metres or so, starting from roughly a mile away from the square.
Walking to the square, pedestrians encountered at least four checkpoints where their bags could be searched and identity documents checked, before a final red-roofed hut at each corner of the square itself, in which bags were x-rayed and identities scanned into a computer, both for Chinese and foreigners.
Long queues, some stretching for up to an hour at busy points in the day, soon formed.
At least 20 coaches of police and armed police stood on the square and on the pavements on the east side while a huge number of plain-clothes policemen carefully watched for any signs of dissent. A couple who had posed for photographs, shaping their hands into a six and a four to mark the date, June 4, were detained. A man who threw leaflets was dragged away.
According to Huang Qi, who monitors protests, the police detained 445 people between 9am and 4pm outside Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound to the north of the square. Buses were laid on to transport the detained to other holding cells.
Teng Biao, a respected Chinese rights lawyer who is based in Hong Kong and has been unable to return to the mainland since last November for fear of arrest, said Beijing had prevented many mainland activists from attending the vigil.
"Some have been arrested, some placed under house arrest and others blocked from coming to Hong Kong," he said.
But attempts to prevent discussion of Tiananmen and political change were futile, Mr Teng added. "The Communist Party cannot hide the truth forever."
Lee Cheuk-yan, who took part in the 1989 protests, said this year's vigil hoped to draw attention both to the Tiananmen killings and the current crackdown.
"We want to challenge the Communist Party over the massacre and also to challenge them over today's repression," he said.
"It is a very, very bad moment, worse than at any time in the past."
"For a very short period some people thought Xi Jinping would maybe be more open but he has shown that he is even more hardline than Hu Jintao," added Mr Lee. "Our vigil is not just about the suppression 25 years ago. June 4 is happening every single day in China."
Alberto Ho, one of Hong Kong's best known pro-democracy politicians, said the former British colony, which returned to Chinese control in 1997, would continue to lead a "crusade" for the truth about Tiananmen.
"We have the courage to stand up and continue to speak truth to power," Mr Ho said.
In Victoria Park tens of thousands of demonstrators, many weeping, lifted their candles into the sticky night air as video footage of the bloodied bodies of Tiananmen's victims was shown.
"The night is long," Mak Hoi-wah, a veteran Hong Kong activist, told the crowd. "Vindication awaits."
end quote from:
Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy politician and one of the vigil's organisers, said: "Tonight is a struggle of remembrance over forgetting, of truth versus lies."
"The Chinese Communist Party has been spreading lies about the 1989 democracy movement and trying to eradicate its memory from history," he told The Telegraph.
Throughout the afternoon, demonstrators from both semi-autonomous Hong Kong and mainland China, where public commemoration of the crackdown remains strictly forbidden, braved scorching temperatures to flock to Victoria Park.
They were greeted by a replica of the "Goddess of Democracy" statue that was erected in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and banners that read: "Rectify the June 4th Verdict" and "Fight Until The Very End".
One poster featured a cartoon of Xi Jinping, China's president, and the caption: "Protest against the Communist Party's frenzied campaign of arrests. Release the dissidents immediately".
Wreaths of white lilies and bouquets of chrysanthemums had been placed around a replica of Tiananmen Square's Monument to the People's Heroes, around which protesters camped in the weeks before the 1989 massacre. "End one-party dictatorship," read one tribute placed there.
"The students did not attack the government or the army but the Chinese government used tanks and guns against them. It is unacceptable," said Raymond Lam, an 18-year-old journalism student who was attending his first vigil.
"I deeply appreciate what the students did in 1989," said Jeffrey Lao, a 21-year-old student from Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology. "Unfortunately some of them were killed and those who survived are kept silent or in prison."
Kin Tse, a 27-year-old labour activist, said: "We are fighting for a common goal: for democracy in China. June 4 is a cornerstone of the fight for democracy."
Activists were no longer just protesting a lack of democracy in mainland China, Mr Kin added. They were increasingly alarmed about the erosion of such rights in Hong Kong, "especially press freedom".
Academics and activists have flown into Hong Kong from around the world to attend commemorations of the 25th anniversary. However, with Beijing currently waging what many describe as its harshest crackdown on critics since 1989, an air of despondence has hung over their meetings.
"This is a discouraging time," Jerome Cohen, a veteran China expert and law professor at the New York University School of Law, told a seminar here on Tuesday. "The situation with respect to freedoms of association, speech, religion – all the basic freedoms – seems to be getting worse despite all the economic and social progress."
Attempts by Xi Jinping, China's president, to centralise power, "reminds me of what Stalin did after Lenin's demise," Prof Cohen added. "We see something that really is beginning to look ugly."
Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China, said the last twelve months had seen a "tremendous deterioration, perhaps the worst human rights situation that we have had in China since 1989".
However, the emergence of an active and vocal civil society provided some hope of change in the longer-term.
"If you look a little further out you are seeing these other very powerful processes already in place and I actually don't think the Chinese Communist Party can stop those developments. They just can't," she said.
The Communist Party's obsession with control was on full show on Wednesday in Beijing, where the illusion of a normal day was enforced by one of the largest security operations since the Tiananmen era itself.
On Chang'an avenue, where the tanks rolled into the square 25 years ago, police teams were stationed every hundred metres or so, starting from roughly a mile away from the square.
Walking to the square, pedestrians encountered at least four checkpoints where their bags could be searched and identity documents checked, before a final red-roofed hut at each corner of the square itself, in which bags were x-rayed and identities scanned into a computer, both for Chinese and foreigners.
Long queues, some stretching for up to an hour at busy points in the day, soon formed.
At least 20 coaches of police and armed police stood on the square and on the pavements on the east side while a huge number of plain-clothes policemen carefully watched for any signs of dissent. A couple who had posed for photographs, shaping their hands into a six and a four to mark the date, June 4, were detained. A man who threw leaflets was dragged away.
According to Huang Qi, who monitors protests, the police detained 445 people between 9am and 4pm outside Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound to the north of the square. Buses were laid on to transport the detained to other holding cells.
Teng Biao, a respected Chinese rights lawyer who is based in Hong Kong and has been unable to return to the mainland since last November for fear of arrest, said Beijing had prevented many mainland activists from attending the vigil.
"Some have been arrested, some placed under house arrest and others blocked from coming to Hong Kong," he said.
But attempts to prevent discussion of Tiananmen and political change were futile, Mr Teng added. "The Communist Party cannot hide the truth forever."
Lee Cheuk-yan, who took part in the 1989 protests, said this year's vigil hoped to draw attention both to the Tiananmen killings and the current crackdown.
"We want to challenge the Communist Party over the massacre and also to challenge them over today's repression," he said.
"It is a very, very bad moment, worse than at any time in the past."
"For a very short period some people thought Xi Jinping would maybe be more open but he has shown that he is even more hardline than Hu Jintao," added Mr Lee. "Our vigil is not just about the suppression 25 years ago. June 4 is happening every single day in China."
Alberto Ho, one of Hong Kong's best known pro-democracy politicians, said the former British colony, which returned to Chinese control in 1997, would continue to lead a "crusade" for the truth about Tiananmen.
"We have the courage to stand up and continue to speak truth to power," Mr Ho said.
In Victoria Park tens of thousands of demonstrators, many weeping, lifted their candles into the sticky night air as video footage of the bloodied bodies of Tiananmen's victims was shown.
"The night is long," Mak Hoi-wah, a veteran Hong Kong activist, told the crowd. "Vindication awaits."
end quote from:
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