Latest news with #Tiananmen
HKFP
3 hours ago
- Politics
- HKFP
Detained Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung to launch 36-hour hunger strike on Tiananmen crackdown anniversary
Hong Kong barrister-activist Chow Hang-tung has announced that she will launch a 36-hour hunger strike in prison on Wednesday to mark the 36th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. The 39-year-old activist, who has been detained since September 2021 pending trial under the national security law, said in a Patreon post on Sunday that she would commemorate June 4 and 'reaffirm our commitment' by fasting for 36 hours. This is the third year that Chow has planned a hunger strike behind bars to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. She began a 34-hour hunger strike on June 4, 2023, and vowed to extend her fast by one hour each year. 'I believe we all will have our own ways to remember the day,' read the post shared by Chow's Patreon account, which is managed by the activist's family and friends. Chow is the former vice chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised Hong Kong's annual Tiananmen vigils. She is facing trial for incitement to subversion alongside the group and its two former leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho. According to the Judiciary's website, Chow, Lee, and Ho are set to appear in court on August 4 for a second pre-trial review. Chow is also expected to make an application for quashing her indictment on November 3, a week before the 75-day trial is scheduled to begin on November 11. For three decades, the alliance organised an annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown, which occurred on June 4, 1989. It is estimated that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died when the People's Liberation Army quashed a student-led pro-democracy movement in Beijing. The vigil in Victoria Park has been banned since Beijing imposed a security law on the city in June 2020. The Alliance voted a year later to disband after its former leaders were prosecuted. In the Patreon post, Chow also reflected on winning an appeal at the city's top court in March, which quashed her conviction and those of two other former Alliance members for failing to comply with a national security police data request. The three were jailed for four and a half months each in August 2023 and had completed their term before winning the final appeal. The case was a 'manifestation of justice and the rule of law' for those implicated, she said. However, there is still a need to reflect on 'how such injustice has occurred,' she added. Chow accused the Department of Justice and the court of concurring with 'false accusations' made by the national security police that the Alliance had been a foreign agent. She said the 'actual crime' in the case was the 'smearing and prosecution of citizens.' 'Indeed, the criticism for this so-called technical victory should have focused on the lenient treatments of these evildoers,' she wrote. Chow added she had demanded that Secretary for Security Chris Tang apologise after the top court's ruling, but she was 'not certain' about how long it would take for the apology to come. 'History tells us that it will likely take a very long time – The Tiananmen Mothers have been waiting for 36 years and still have not received an apology. However, they have not given up on holding the government accountable,' she wrote. Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong's mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
HKFP
3 days ago
- Politics
- HKFP
Hong Kong's Catholic church declines to say if Tiananmen mass will take place after 3 years of cancellations
Hong Kong's Catholic church has declined to say if it will hold a mass this year to commemorate victims of the Tiananmen crackdown, after scrapping the event in the past three years. When asked if the church would resume the memorial mass on Wednesday – which is June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown – the communications office said it had held a service last week to pray for the Catholic church in China. The Hong Kong Catholic Social Communication Office said in an email on Friday that May 24 had been designated as the 'World Day of Prayer for the Church in China.' Cardinal Stephen Chow 'presided over a Solemn Mass on 24th May this year… at the Cathedral to devote to 'Mary Help of Christians' and to pray for the Church in China,' the office wrote in an email to HKFP. Last year, the Catholic church gave a similar email reply when asked if it would organise a mass. No mass was eventually held on the anniversary. The Catholic church's Tiananmen mass was part of Hong Kong's tradition of mourning the victims of the 1989 crackdown for more than three decades until it was cancelled for the first time in 2022. It has not resumed since. The church at that time cited concerns about members potentially breaching the national security law, which Beijing imposed in 2020 after the pro-democracy protests and unrest that began the year before. Last year, Cardinal Chow wrote in an open prayer that only through forgiveness would people be able to heal from events that took place '35 years ago in the capital city,' an apparent reference to the 1989 crackdown. Patriotic carnival to return in Victoria Park Public remembrance of the Tiananmen crackdown has become rare since the enactment of Beijing's national security law. In Victoria Park, where Tiananmen vigils took place on the anniversary for three decades, pro-Beijing groups are scheduled to run a patriotic food carnival for the third straight year in the days spanning June 4. The Hometown Market will be held from Sunday to next Thursday, according to the organisers' Facebook page. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Beijing-imposed national security law, tens of thousands of Hongkongers gathered for an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to mourn the bloody crackdown on student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The number of deaths is not known, but it is believed that hundreds, if not thousands, died during the People's Liberation Army's dispersal of protesters that day. Police banned the Tiananmen vigil gathering at Victoria Park for the first time in 2020, citing Covid-19 restrictions, and imposed the ban again in 2021, nearly a year after the national security law came into effect. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the vigils, disbanded in September 2021 after several of its members were arrested. No official commemoration has been held since then. But HKFP reporters saw individuals lighting up the torch on their phones or holding LED candles in the vicinity of Victoria Park on June 4 last year, in gestures they said were in remembrance of the Tiananmen crackdown. A heavy police presence was also seen near the park as officers stopped people and conducted searches. In recent years, the Hong Kong government has referred to the Tiananmen anniversary as a 'sensitive date,' while statues and artworks paying tribute to the 1989 crackdown have also been removed from the city's university campuses.
HKFP
26-05-2025
- Politics
- HKFP
Patriotic carnival to return to Hong Kong's Victoria Park on anniversary of Tiananmen crackdown
For the third consecutive year, Hong Kong's Victoria Park – historically the site of annual candlelight vigils to remember the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown – will host a patriotic food carnival on June 4. The Hometown Market will be held from Sunday, June 1, to June 5, featuring nearly 300 booths, according to the organisers' Facebook page. During the five-day event, 30 clan associations representing provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian, and Guangxi will run booths selling local delicacies. There will also be 'innovative technology and sports experience zones,' the pro-Beijing organisers also said. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Beijing-imposed national security law, tens of thousands of Hongkongers gathered for an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to mourn the bloody crackdown on student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The number of deaths is not known, but it is believed hundreds, if not thousands, perished during the People's Liberation Army's dispersal of protesters, which ended on June 4, 1989. Police banned the Tiananmen vigil gathering at Victoria Park for the first time in 2020, citing Covid-19 restrictions, and imposed the same ban in 2021, nearly a year after the national security law came into effect. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the vigils, disbanded in September 2021 after several of its members were arrested. No official commemoration has been held since then. The park also played host to the Hometown Market last year and the year before, with police patrolling the vicinity, stopping and searching passersby. In recent years, the Hong Kong government has referred to the Tiananmen anniversary as a 'sensitive date,' while statues and artworks paying tribute to the 1989 crackdown have been removed from the city's university campuses. The Pillar of Shame monument disappeared from the University of Hong Kong in a covert overnight operation on December 23, 2021. The next day, the Goddess of Democracy statue was taken away from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, while the Tiananmen Massacre wall relief was removed from Lingnan University.
Boston Globe
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
When it comes to promoting democracy, Trump is no JFK or Reagan
Advertisement Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up A Wall Street Journal editorial That was certainly not the approach of John F. Kennedy, whose inaugural address memorably Advertisement For Trump, these have never been priorities. Spreading freedom, bolstering democratic institutions abroad, 'ending tyranny in the world' — they form no part of the MAGA agenda. That helps explain why an early priority of the administration was to As one whose Advertisement Trump's style is crude and often offensive. But there's no denying that his foreign policy approach fits within the so-called realist school of thought — or that he is far from the first political leader to embrace it. Before Reagan came along to support anticommunist freedom fighters and exhort Mikhail Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall,' Richard Nixon was promoting 'détente' with Moscow and cozying up to Mao Zedong, the Similarly, Barack Obama spurned the 'freedom agenda' of his predecessor. Like Bush 41 during Tiananmen, Obama was Advertisement As a candidate for president in 2004, John Kerry repeatedly articulated foreign policy views like those Trump espouses. He Foreign policy 'realists' maintain that while more freedom and democracy in the world might be nice, America has a more pressing interest in assuring global stability, even at the cost of engaging diplomatically with dictators and other rogue actors. The problem is that the stability they prize is often beneficial only in the short term, and sometimes not even then. American backing for Middle Eastern dictatorships helped turn the region into an incubator of Islamist terrorism. The 'reset' that let Putin get away with seizing Crimea emboldened him to launch even bloodier attacks. Advertisement Of course the people Trump sneeringly calls 'interventionists' and 'so-called nation-builders' can and have made awful blunders. All the same, it remains the case that American foreign policy is most truly realistic when it is rooted in the ideals that have made America such a land of hope and inspiration. Trump isn't the first president who doesn't get that. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
HKFP
21-05-2025
- Politics
- HKFP
Ex-district councillor arrested under Article 23 says she is being ‘silenced' after losing job, ousted from play
A former Hong Kong district councillor arrested under the city's homegrown security law last May has said she is being 'silenced' after being ousted from her job and a theatre production she was part of. Katrina Chan, a former Tsuen Wan district councillor, wrote in a Facebook post on Monday that 'beneath the harmony and 'business as usual,' people's voices are being erased and silenced.' She described two incidents that happened within 24 hours. In the first incident, an actor taking part in a play opening in two weeks was told to quit after a government department, which the production rented the venue from, checked the name list, she wrote. If they did not quit, the department could refuse the rental on the basis that it might breach an ordinance. In another incident, a teacher lost their job after an anonymous complaint letter was sent to the workplace. Chan told HKFP on Tuesday that the two incidents happened to her on Friday. The former district councillor made the post almost a year after she and five others were arrested under Article 23, the city's homegrown national security law, last May. Their arrests were linked to a Facebook page called 'Chow Hang-tung Club,' named after the activist who was vice-president of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, a group that organised Tiananmen vigils. None of those arrested have been charged. In her social media post, Chan said the things that happened to her may be brushed off as 'isolated incidents' – 'wording that is most commonly used by those in power.' 'By reducing everything to the person, the broader effects on the public and society are obscured,' she wrote in Chinese. 'The root of the problem lies in the system and structural shifts, not individual cases.' According to local media outlet The Collective, Chan was scheduled to perform in a play at Tsuen Wan Town Hall this week. In response to HKFP, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) said: 'All bookings of LCSD venues are processed in accordance with the established booking procedures and the terms and conditions of hire. We will not comment on any individual bookings.' The Tsuen Wan Town Hall's conditions of use for renting facilities state that hirers and those admitted to facilities must abide by the Beijing-imposed national security law.
