Hong Kong: ten months in jail for Joshua Wong after banned Tiananmen vigil
For his participation in a forbidden ceremony in memory of the victims of the Tiananmen repression, near Victoria Park in Hong Kong, pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong receives a 10-month prison sentence.
Here during the vigil on June 4, 2020. AFP - ANTHONY WALLACE
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Four Hong Kong activists were sentenced to prison terms this Thursday in Hong Kong.
The court accuses them of their participation in a forbidden ceremony in memory of the victims of the Tiananmen repression.
Among them, Joshua Wong, already in detention for his role in the anti-government protests of 2019. He receives ten additional months.
Sentences which also aim to dissuade those who would like to participate in the next vigil next June, also prohibited because of Covid-19.
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With our correspondent in Beijing
,
Stéphane Lagarde
This is not a banned rave party, but a peaceful assembly, also banned, with young people wearing blue masks and black T-shirts, sitting cross-legged with candles in hand, on the sports grounds of Victoria Park in Hong Kong.
The photo is from last year.
For his presence at the 31st “
candlelight vigil
” for the
victims of June 4, 1989
,
Joshua Wong
, 24, will remain behind bars for ten more months.
The figure of the pro-democracy movement is already in detention, where he served four of the thirteen months of his
sentence for his role in the anti-government protests
of 2019.
The vigil of remembrance
The court hearing was also delayed by a little over twenty minutes this Thursday, May 6.
The van of the transfer to the court being caught in the traffic jams.
Three district councilors who also pleaded guilty last week, Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen Ka-wai and Jannelle Rosalynne Leung, were also sentenced for the same reason to
terms ranging from four to six months in prison
.
"
It's very impressive to see the Hong Kong people continue to fight for justice 30 years later
", said in 2019 Richard Tsoi, one of the organizers of this candlelight vigil where, as for the Olympic Games, the flame of the transmission and remembrance is never supposed to be extinguished.
Except that with the health crisis, like last year, the vigil is for the second time in its history banned by the authorities.
Because this manifestation of memory, the Chinese authorities well know, has also been for 30 years a point of convergence of the struggles for freedoms in Hong Kong.
Two years ago, this was even the starting point for
major protests against the extradition law
.
Twenty-four pro-democracy activists have previously been accused of organizing, participating in or instigating others to take part in the
31st anniversary commemoration
, including media mogul Jimmy Lai.
A forbidden memory
The memory of Tiananmen, maintained so far in Hong Kong, meets the amnesia of neighboring People's China, where the slightest mention of "
May 35
" as the mainlanders who try to escape censorship call it, has long been forgotten. carefully and immediately erased by the guardians of the great computer wall.
The latter should be all the more vigilant that this forbidden memory comes to be telescoped, with the much more official memory of 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party.
After Covid-19, the national security law passed by Parliament in Beijing last June could therefore continue to prevent these gatherings in memory of the victims of the People's Liberation Army.
As for reparations: human rights organizations recall that no one in Beijing has until today been taken to prison for his involvement in the repression of the student movement, more than three decades ago on the largest place in the world.
►
To read: Hong Kong: figures of the pro-democracy fight condemned for a demonstration in 2019
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