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