Thousands mark Tiananmen Square crackdown
Tens of thousands of people have gathered at a large Hong Kong park to mark the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners in Beijing 24 years ago.
They turned the park into a sea of flickering light as they held candles aloft to remember those killed when their protests in Tiananmen Square were crushed by the Chinese military on June 4, 1989.
The annual vigil in the former British colony increasingly symbolises disaffection with rule by Beijing. Commemorations of the crackdown are suppressed everywhere else in China.
The vigil was cut short by a brief but heavy tropical downpour that sent some scurrying for the exits, but many remained, huddling with their candles under umbrellas.
Organisers estimated a crowd of 150,000 while police put the number at 54,000, local media reported.
Vigil leaders and crowd members called for Beijing to reverse its verdict on the protests, which Communist Party leaders have condemned as a counter-revolutionary riot.
In Beijing, there was no sign of large-scale protest, but some people answered a call by activists to wear black to work in remembrance. As in previous years, many pro-democracy activists were not allowed to leave their homes to mark the anniversary.
In Hong Kong, the event has taken on a life of its own, with residents of the now semi-autonomous Chinese region expressing unhappiness that their administrators are still hand-picked by Beijing despite promises of more democracy.
When Hong Kongers poured into the streets in 1989, their sympathy with the protesters in Beijing had more to do with fears about impending Chinese rule - then eight years away. Now it is about current problems that include corruption, a leader viewed by many as inept and a yawning wealth gap that has stifled the aspirations of the city’s large middle-class.
When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, it was allowed to keep its own political system and Western-style civil liberties such as freedom of speech until 2047.
Residents can vote for some of their legislators while others are chosen by business and other special interest groups. They have never been able to choose their leader, who during British colonial rule was dispatched from London. Since China retook control, the leader, now known as chief executive, has been chosen by a committee of mostly pro-Beijing elites.
Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kongers to elect their leader by 2017 and elect all legislators in 2020 but no roadmap has been laid out.
The lack of progress has led Hong Kong University Professor Benny Tai to propose a protest movement in which supporters would occupy the city’s financial district in 2014 in a last-ditch attempt to press their demands for a genuine chief executive election.
