With Vigil Banned, Hong Kong Activists Commemorate June 4 Privately
Posted by Joseph Brouwer | Jun 3, 2021
For three decades a vigil to commemorate those killed in Beijing on June 4, 1989 was held in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. It was once the only Tiananmen Square memorial held on Chinese soil. Now, local authorities have used the pretext of coronavirus to ban the annual gathering attendance can be punished with five years in prison, publicizing it with one. Authorities attempted to block the vigil in 2020 but organizers defied the ban. Some are now imprisoned. Eight other prominent activists and Hong Kong residents were sentenced last week for attending a banned protest on the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s founding on October 1, 2019. At The Wall Street Journal, Wenxin Fan
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Neighbours Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia have recorded similar spikes, although the source of their outbreaks varied.
In Vietnam, another COVID-19 success story from last year, health workers were told to prepare for 30,000 patients after cases began climbing in mid-April.
And Singapore, which had so successfully contained coronavirus that it was looking to open a travel corridor with Hong Kong, recently reported a string of untraceable infections. The travel bubble has now been postponed, and social restrictions are back in place.
Already, the developments in Asia are being watched with some nervousness back in Australia.
Victoria s Chief Health Officer, professor Brett Sutton, identified the recent outbreaks in countries that had been in a state of no COVID-19 transmission  as a lesson for others.
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Top story: More deaths on ‘day of anger’ Hello, Warren Murray here, and thanks as always for lending your attention. France has increased pressure on the US to publicly call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict after a UN security council meeting ended without a joint statement. Sporadic bombardment of Gaza city has continued overnight, with residents kept awake as Israeli jets flew low overhead in the wake of fresh rocket fire, AFP.