“More and more student groups have broken away from the event, saying organizers have “lost touch” with Hong Kong residents’ aspirations”.
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Organisers of Saturday’s candlelit vigil said 125,000 people gathered into Victoria Park to pay tribute to the dead, holding a minute of silence in the only large-scale public commemoration of the killings.
Tsai Ing-wen said in a Facebook post on the 27th anniversary that Taiwan could serve as an example to China.
Heavily censored in mainland China, the crackdown which was heavily condemned the world over, is often referred to simply as the “June 4 incident” in the communist state. “We are against their vision that they want to be a democratic China”, says Althea Suen, President of Hong Kong University Student Union, the most recent group to splinter off.
Ties with China have rapidly cooled since Tsai won the presidency in January, with Beijing highly distrustful of her traditionally independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Security was tightened around Tiananmen Square on the 27th anniversary Saturday of China’s bloody military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests, pointing to the enduring sensitivity over the events with the Chinese leadership.
A visitor walks through the June 4th Museum in Hong Kong, Saturday, June 4, 2016.
While the Victoria Park rally is just one event, there are concerns within the wider pro-democracy movement that the controversy is indicative of a bigger split that could affect the upcoming elections to the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s parliament. “We have to stand against the Chinese regime, but we also have to think about Hong Kong’s future”, said student Raven Kwok, 20, among around 400 who had gathered for the forum.
It follows the decision in April by student leaders to quit the Hong Kong Alliance because they believe one of its main aims, fighting for democracy in mainland China, is no longer realistic.
The pro-independence Hong Kong National Party added that, while young people still feel sorry for the students killed in 1989, “they don’t share the same memory of Chinese identity with the older generation”.
Vigil organiser Richard Tsoi, from the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said if the event was axed, Tiananmen would be rendered a “non-issue” due to repression from Beijing.
“This is not a ideal event, but there are some meaningful things for us”, Wong said.
Missing from the crowd were the student groups that had been longstanding supporters of the annual vigil.
Every year June 4 is seen as a stark reminder of the day, when thousands of young people took over the streets of Beijing, challenging the might of the CPC and the military.
The Chinese words project on the wall are ” Exonerate the June 4″.
Foreign journalists were stopped, filmed and ultimately forced to leave the area, ostensibly for lacking proper permission.
Ahead of the anniversary, family members of those killed in the crackdown were placed under additional restrictions, either confined to their homes or forced to leave the capital.
At least half a dozen people have reportedly been detained in recent days for attempting to commemorate the events, although a small group wearing T-shirts condemning the crackdown converged on the square last Sunday.
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China’s government has rejected their calls for an independent accounting of the events and those killed and maimed by soldiers.
