• Asia The Tiananmen rumor: the Chinese who do not know the massacre

There was no vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park to remember the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The light of thousands of candles that spent three decades illuminating this park every June 4, went out three years ago. The authoritarian and nationalistic shake-up over a city that was once a beacon of freedoms in Asia erased any public memory of one of the darkest days in China's history.

Replacing the candlelight ceremonies and minutes of silence that made the Communist Party uncomfortable, a Chinese food festival was held in Victoria Park this weekend. The idea of making a "local carnival", as they have called it, was from 26 associations close to Beijing. The proposal quickly convinced the government of the former British colony, handpicked from Beijing and which has banned any public event that makes any wink, however small, to the massacre of students that occurred just 34 years ago in the capital.

From some white booths where food was distributed, which stretched along the main esplanade of Victoria Park, Chinese flags were dropped. On the streets, up to 5,000 police were deployed by the authorities. On the eve of the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, eight people were detained in Hong Kong. Four of them are accused of "disturbing the order in public spaces or performing acts with seditious intentions". The other four on suspicion of "breaking the public peace".

One of those arrested is artist Sanmu Chen. "Don't forget June 4th! Hong Kong people, don't be afraid of them!" he shouted on a busy street in the popular Causeway Bay shopping district. The police took him away because, according to their interpretation, Chen was "uttering seditious words." Under the national security law, passed three years ago and which buried the autonomy that Hong Kong has always boasted, secession charges can be punished with up to life imprisonment.

"Happy anniversary of collective amnesia," a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist who was one of 24 arrested for participating in the first vigil banned in Victoria Park on June 4, 2020, wrote in a Telegram group on Sunday. It was the last time activists dared to defy the authorities. Some of those arrested still remain in prison. A couple of months ago, a city court sentenced three of the leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance, the group organizing the vigils, to four and a half months in jail.

The security law, in addition to curbing any public demonstrations, erased any written memory – books in libraries and schools – about what happened in Tiananmen. Even last year, authorities took from the University of Hong Kong the only remaining monument in China commemorating the massacre, the Pillar of Shame, a sculpture erected in 1997, when the former colony returned to Chinese rule, which featured 50 anguished faces and tortured bodies piled on top of each other. remembering the protesters calling for democracy who were killed by Chinese troops in the iconic Tiananmen Square.

The numbers of students killed were never known. There were hundreds. Maybe thousands. In China, despite the fact that 34 years have passed, a long time accompanied by an explosion of development and opening-up, three changes of leadership and even a pandemic, the event remains taboo. It is one of the most delicate and intractable issues. Any reference to what happened on Chinese social media is quickly discontinued.

"The Chinese government continues to evade accountability for the massacre, emboldening arbitrary detention, censorship and surveillance. Even so, many people in China and around the world continue to risk their safety and freedom to demand their rights," says Yaqiu Wang, China researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), a human rights group that recalls how, in the weeks leading up to the Tiananmen anniversary, the Chinese authorities always restrict the movement and communication of activists and members of the Tiananmen Mothers. The famous association formed by the relatives of the victims.

"On May 27, 2023, authorities in Hunan province detained activist Chen Siming after he refused to delete a message he posted on Twitter recalling what happened. Last year, in the city of Hangzhou, police detained another activist, Xu Guang, who participated in the 1989 pro-democracy movement, shortly after he went to a local police station to demand that the Chinese government recognize the massacre. A couple of months ago, a court ruled that Xu Guang was guilty of "provoking quarrels and trouble," a common charge in China used to silence dissent, which can carry a sentence of up to five years.

While not even in Hong Kong can anything related to that June 4, 1989 be mentioned aloud, in some thirty cities around the world held different events on Sunday remembering the repression of Tiananmen. Even in New York, in midtown Manhattan, several figures of those who participated in the student movement have inaugurated a museum full of photos, videos, press clippings and banners of those days.

The presentation of the museum was made by Wang Dan, who spent almost a decade in a prison in China before being able to flee to the United States: "The events of 1989 are linked to the past, but also to the present and the future. We must commemorate those who sacrificed their lives and remember the democratic dreams of the Chinese people."

  • Hong Kong
  • China

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