Hong Kong police arrested a prominent figure in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, Alexandra Wong, better known as “Mamie Wong”, on Sunday on the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, according to AFP journalists. .
Alexandra Wong, before being loaded into a police van, carried a bouquet of flowers at the time of her arrest in the central district of Causeway Bay, where candlelight vigils have long been held in memory of the victims of Tiananmen. A leader of an opposition party was also arrested.
Several arrests
To stifle any attempt at commemoration, Hong Kong authorities deployed police in large numbers on Sunday to mark the 34th anniversary of the bloody crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
On the eve of this anniversary, the police had already taken a massive position in Victoria Park and its surroundings, arresting several street artists on Saturday, some of whom did not seem to be doing anything in particular. Like the performance artist Chan Mei-Tung, searched and arrested while she was walking in the neighborhood. Or another artist, Sanmu Chen, who chose a less discreet method and sang in a loop: “Don’t forget June 4! People of Hong Kong, don’t be afraid of them! »
Four people were arrested for “disorderly conduct on public roads” and for “acts for seditious purposes”, and four others for “disturbing public order”, the police announced on Saturday evening.
A law to muzzle all dissent
For more than 30 years, tens of thousands of people have gathered each year in Victoria Park in Hong Kong for a candlelight vigil in memory of the victims of Beijing’s Tiananmen. But in 2020 Beijing imposed a national security law in the former British colony to muzzle any dissent after the massive pro-democracy protests of 2019. Since then, Hong Kong authorities have ended vigils that have never been allowed in mainland China.
This year, the giant park gathering in the central Causeway Bay district has been replaced by a trade fair devoted to products from mainland China and organized until Monday by pro-Beijing groups to celebrate the 26th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China.
“Hong Kong is a different city today,” said Ms. Wong, 53, who only agrees to give her last name, while praising the pro-Chinese fair.
Hong Kong, returned to China by the United Kingdom in 1997, was for a long time the only Chinese city to organize a candlelight vigil in memory of Tiananmen. It was also a key indicator of the freedoms and political pluralism conferred on it by its status as a semi-autonomous territory.
Erase the memory
In mainland China, all traces of the Tiananmen events have been erased by the authorities. History textbooks do not mention it, online discussions on this subject are systematically censored.
Witness the misadventure of the British Embassy in Beijing, which posted on social media on Sunday a front page dated June 4, 1989 of “People’s Daily”, the official propaganda organ of the Chinese Communist Party, which described the influx of injured in hospitals as a result of the crackdown. “Within twenty minutes, censors deleted our Weibo (Chinese social media) post,” the UK Embassy tweeted on Sunday.
This year, Chinese police are also monitoring a site emblematic of the rare movement of hostility against Xi Jinping’s regime that erupted last fall.