Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, once the site of the world’s largest annual public commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, is now silent on June 4 as authorities continue to suppress vigils and public discussion of the massacre.
For decades, residents gathered in the park with candles to remember those killed when Chinese troops crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing. Attendance reached about 180,000 in 2019, making the gathering a powerful symbol of the civil liberties Hong Kong retained after its return to Chinese rule.
Authorities first banned the vigil in 2020, citing the pandemic. After Beijing imposed the National Security Law that year, organizers and participants faced mounting legal pressure. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organized the event, dissolved in 2021.
Pro-Beijing fairs now occupy the park around the anniversary, while local news organizations largely avoid the subject. Media workers say the absence of coverage reflects fear that reporting on the massacre or its commemoration could be treated as a national security offense.
The tradition has increasingly moved overseas. Hong Kong communities and civic groups now organize commemorations in Taiwan, Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries, with Taipei’s Liberty Square emerging as an important venue for preserving the memory of June 4.
Image: People attend a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park in 2014 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. (Photo: RFA)
Source: Radio Free Asia
