Hong Kong police have warned that people run the risk of breaking the law if they gather on Saturday to commemorate the repression of Tiananmen in China, especially in the city’s Victoria Park, the site of an annual candlelight vigil.
Discussion of the 1989 crackdown, when the government placed troops and tanks on peaceful protesters, is almost banned in mainland China.
But semi-autonomous Hong Kong had been an exception until two years ago, when Beijing enacted a national security law to eliminate dissent after major pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Residents risk committing the crime of “illegal assembly” while in the park, Chief Superintendent Liauw Ka-kei said Thursday, even if they go there alone.
“When there are other people out there and you share a common goal to express some calls, that’s enough to make you a member of an illegal assembly,” Liauw said.
Asked if residents can wear black clothes, bring flowers or candles and show up near the park, he said: . “
He said police had noticed calls on social media to gather at the park on Saturday, but gave no details.
Residents in black clothing, with flowers or candles appearing near the park may be subject to a police search. (AP: Kin Cheung)
Security laws erase the history of Tiananmen
Since the security law came into force in 2020, a campaign to remove all traces of Tiananmen has swept the city.
The Hong Kong Alliance, Tiananmen’s most prominent defense group and the organizer of the Victoria Park surveillance, was prosecuted as a “foreign agent” for inciting subversion.
Last September, its leaders were arrested, its museum closed after a police raid, and digital records were erased overnight.
Police banned the vigil and closed the park in 2020 and 2021, citing a ban on meetings according to coronavirus rules.
Liauw said police had not received any requests to hold an assembly in the park on June 4 this year, but that officers would monitor the area anyway.
Police have “reserved” Victoria Park for surveillance
Four of the park’s six football fields have been booked from early in the morning until around midnight “by individual citizens for the purpose of playing football,” the Hong Kong Department of Cultural and Leisure Services said. .
The other two plots have been sealed for “maintenance” since early May.
Liauw also said that anyone who promotes an unauthorized assembly in Victoria Park, even if she herself has not shown up, will have broken the law.
He added that meetings elsewhere will receive similar treatment.
When asked if lighting a candle on a private balcony is illegal – a measure many have taken over the past two years in the absence of other options – Liauw said he did not see any law banning it.
AFP
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