Security Tight in Hong Kong, China on Tiananmen Crackdown Anniversary
Editor
4 June 2024 19:49 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Hong Kong - Security was tight and access restricted to Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Tuesday, the 35th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, while Hong Kong police detained several activists, as cities in Taiwan and elsewhere prepared to mark the date with vigils.
Chinese tanks rolled into the square before dawn on June 4, 1989, to end weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations by students and workers. Television news images of a lone Chinese man in a white shirt standing in front of a column of tanks spread around the world and became the iconic image of the demonstrations.
Decades after the military crackdown, rights activists say the demonstrators' original goals including a free press and freedom of speech remain distant, and June 4 is still a taboo topic in China.
The ruling Communist Party has never released a death toll, though rights groups and witnesses say the figure could run into the thousands.
"The memory of June 4th will not disappear in the torrent of history," Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te said in a statement on Tuesday.
Taiwan would "respond to authoritarianism with freedom," added Lai, inaugurated last month as the leader of the democratic island China claims as its own.
In Beijing, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, told reporters that Beijing "firmly opposes anyone smearing China and using this (June 4) as a pretext to interfere in China's internal affairs".
Taiwan is the only part of the Chinese-speaking world where June 4 can be remembered openly, with a commemoration event planned in Taipei, the capital. Others are planned in countries such as Britain, Canada and the United States.
In China-ruled Hong Kong, police officers tightened security around downtown Victoria Park, where large June 4 candlelight vigils had been held annually before tougher new national security laws took effect in recent years.
Police took away several individuals near the park, among them an elderly man holding up a poster commemorating June 4, a Reuters witness said.
Another activist, 68-year-old Alexandra Wong, was surrounded by around a dozen officers when she held up a bouquet of flowers and shouted, "The people will not forget," before being taken away in a police van.
Over the past week, Hong Kong police have arrested eight people for sedition under a new national security law, including activist Chow Hang-tung, stemming from what media said were online posts linked to June 4.
"There are still forces that attempt to undermine Hong Kong's stability and security," Hong Kong leader John Lee told reporters, without mentioning June 4 specifically.
He also warned of a need to "be on guard all the time against attempts to cause trouble".
In Beijing, an official website for the Tiananmen Tower overlooking the square
