Secretly commemorating the anniversary of Tiananmen in Hong Kong

On June 4, 1989, the communist regime sent tanks and troops to suppress peaceful protesters who had for weeks occupied Beijing’s iconic central square demanding political change and an end to systematic corruption.

The crushing of the movement resulted in hundreds of deaths, more than a thousand according to some estimates.

Since then, Chinese authorities have tried to erase Tiananmen from collective memory. History textbooks do not mention it and online discussions on this topic are systematically censored.

In Beijing, authorities have placed facial recognition devices on the streets leading to the plaza. Police, deployed in large numbers, conducted meticulous identity checks on Saturday.

If, in China, incitement to events in 1989 was always taboo, Hong Kong was an exception until 2020. Beijing then imposed a drastic national security law in the semi-autonomous region to prevent all of dissent, after massive pro-democracy protests in 2019..

Since then, local authorities have been trying to erase all traces of the Tiananmen memorial.

The parks are closed from Friday

Police warned that joining a unauthorized meeting will be liable to five years in prison. This warning is particularly applicable to Victoria Park, where a candlelight vigil once gathered thousands of people on June 4th.

A large part of this park was closed on Friday night, and police were massive deployed on Saturday around. A journalist fromAFP saw a man in a black T-shirt being taken to a police van. Move on, nothing to see hereshout from loudspeakers.

A former leader of the Hong Kong Alliance, the association that organized the surveillance, was surrounded by agents as he walked around holding a bouquet of red and white roses in his hand, and searched his bag.

A man dressed in black and carrying a chrysanthemum toldAFP also reviewed and searched. The police ordered me not to do anything to encourage people to gatherhe said. But people would come into work and I was just walking around carrying a white chrysanthemumHe added.

In this same commercial district of Causeway Bay, which borders Victoria Park, a street artist who carved a potato in the shape of a candle with a lighter was arrested on Friday by a dozen agents.

The government is terrified of a possible rallysaid toAFP Dorothy, a 32 -year -old Hong Konger, around the park. The end of the vigils is a huge loss to societyhe regrets.

A Hong Kong woman toldAFP that he lit a candle in the house and placed a replica of goddess of democracythe statue-symbol of the Tiananmen movement.

Vigils have already been banned in 2020 and 2021 in the name of fighting COVID-19. Then, in September, the Hong Kong Alliance was disbanded, its June 4 Museum was dismantled and its leaders arrested.

The lack of clarity on what is legal or not has prompted six Hong Kong universities in recent months to unbolt, as a precaution, the Tiananmen memorials built on their campuses.

And one of the last ways for Hong Kongers to gather for Tiananmen, the annual Catholic mass, was canceled this year, again for fear of persecution.

Several Western consulates in Hong Kong have posted messages related to Tiananmen on social media. Confirmed by the European Union office inAFP local media reports that Chinese authorities have asked them to stay away.

On Twitter, which is blocked in China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid tribute to bravely protested that there was peacefully demanding democracy in Tiananmen Square 33 years ago.

Despite the removal of memories and attempts to erase history, we honor their memory by promoting respect for human rights wherever they threaten.he wrote.

The collective memory of June 4 in Hong Kong is systematically erased said Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, according to whom such crude and unreasonable steps cannot erase the memory of the people.