HKFP Lens: Pro-Beijing groups’ patriotic carnival rolls out at former Tiananmen vigil venue
Hong Kong Free Press
Pro-Beijing groups have set up a patriotic carnival in part of Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park, where annual vigils were held for decades to mark the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.
The event period covers the crackdown’s 35th anniversary on Monday, with the festivities open to the public from Saturday until next Wednesday.
In April, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department told HKFP that an organisation had applied to use the football pitches, central lawn and basketball courts for a “public event” between May 27 and June 8.
The Federation of Hong Kong Guangdong Community Organisations is among 28 co-organisers behind the carnival, which may coincide with a wet weekend and will cost HK$5 to enter. The Observatory raised the T3 storm signal early on Friday evening.
The Tiananmen crackdown occurred on June 4, 1989 ending months of student-led demonstrations in China. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when the People’s Liberation Army cracked down on protesters in Beijing.
The now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China had organised annual candlelight vigils at Victoria Park for 30 years to commemorate victims of the crackdown.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of the Beijing-imposed security law on June 30, 2020, Hong Kong – for decades – was one of very few places on Chinese soil that permitted public mourning of the crackdown, even though top officials had become more tight-lipped about the historical event.
After the alliance disbanded in September 2021 following pressure from the authorities and the arrest of the group’s leadership, no official commemoration had been scheduled in 2022 and 2023.
Hong Kong police banned the event for the first time in 2020 citing anti-epidemic public gathering restrictions. The alliance’s application to hold the vigil was rejected again in 2021.
Last June, 26 pro-Beijing groups organised a patriotic carnival in Victoria Park between June 3 and 5 to celebrate the July 1 anniversary of the city’s Handover to China. More than 200 booths were set up by 26 local “hometown associations,” each of which represented a region in China.
Ahead of the anniversary, Chief Executive John Lee was unable to directly tell state whether or not commemorations were legal.
This week, Hong Kong made its first arrests under its new locally-legislated national security law, Article 23. Police said on Tuesday that a group of seven were arrested over allegedly “exploited an upcoming sensitive date to repeatedly publish posts with seditious intention on a social platform.”
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