A performance artist was detained in Hong Kong on the eve of the Tiananmen Square crackdown anniversary as security remains tight in the city.
Artist Sanmu Chen was near a park that for decades hosted an annual vigil to mourn those killed in Beijing 35 years ago when he was surrounded by police and taken away.
According to reports, he had mimed writing 8964 in the air — referencing the date of the June 4, 1989 massacre that crushed China’s pro-democracy movement.
Police said officers took Chen to a police station because they found him causing chaos at the scene.
After an investigation, Chen was released unconditionally, according to police.
The Chinese Communist Party has never revealed how many people were killed when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square and opened fire after weeks of pro-democracy protests in Beijing.
Witnesses and human rights groups put the death toll in the hundreds — and possibly into the thousands.
Now, even attempts to commemorate the date seem to be increasingly risky.
Large-scale commemorations, including Hong Kong’s previously annual June 4 vigil in Victoria Park, have vanished.
Instead, pro-Beijing groups held a carnival at the park.
Authorities have closed Hong Kong’s June 4th museum.
Last week, six people were arrested for sedition under a new national security law enacted this year, for online posts linked to June 4.
The new law, Article 23, introduces dozens of new crimes such as sabotage, sedition, the theft of state secrets and espionage, and threatens jail time up to life imprisonment for the most severe offences.
‘We heard gunshots’
Despite the attempts to stifle the memory of the massacre, overseas Chinese communities are determined to keep it alive.
In Sydney, Hongkongers held a candlelight vigil on Sunday despite fears of increased Chinese surveillance.
Former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin, who defected to Australia in 2005, attended and emphasised the importance of commemorating the event.
Under the draconian national security laws “Hong Kong shares the same fate”, he told the ABC.
Mr Chen, who witnessed the crackdown as a university graduate in Beijing, recalled tanks and soldiers closing in on protesters.
“We linked hands and tried to block the soldiers but then we heard gunshots,” Mr Chen said.
Mr Chen said Beijing has never disclosed any information about the military’s actions on that day.
“They want to lie to the people to cover the truth about committing the massive murders in Tiananmen,” he said.
In Brisbane, activist Andrew Chan screened a film about prominent pro-democracy activist Chow Hang Tung.
She had organised the annual Victoria Park vigil, but was imprisoned in 2021 under national security laws.
Former student protest leader Zhou Fengsuo spent a year in jail after helping to arrange the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
“We must do this — to stand up to China,” Mr Zhou, who has been travelling to vigils around the world, told the ABC from the US.
“I remember those protests before the crackdown as days of hope, it is important to remember how we all came together as a country to call for democracy.”