Hong Kong police ban Tiananmen vigil for second year

At Victoria Park, the site of the annual candlelight vigil remembering the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, 7,000 police officers stood guard to prevent people from gathering Friday. Earlier in the day, police arrested an organizer for the vigil, Chow Hang Tung, for promoting an unlawful assembly. Anyone attempting to attend the vigil could face up to five years in prison. The Hong Kong government claimed the ban is due to COVID-19 restrictions, although the government allows other large events as the city has not recorded any untraceable local transmissions in more than a month.

What happened at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989? After seven weeks of student-led protests calling for democracy in China, Chinese leaders decided to violently crack down. Tanks rolled down the streets toward Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3, killing hundreds or even thousands of civilians. The anniversary has always been tightly censored in China, but the Hong Kong vigil attracted tens of thousands of people each year before its ban last year.

Dig Deeper: Read June Cheng’s report on attending the 2019 Tiananmen vigil in Hong Kong.