VICTORIA PARK, Hong Kong – The anniversary of Beijing's night of shame has become Hong Kong’s brightest and proudest evening of the year.

For the 21st time in as many years, a massive crowd gathered in Hong Kong's largest urban park on June 4 to solemnly and defiantly light candles, sing songs and hear speeches in remembrance of victims in the 1989 Beijing Massacre. An estimated 150,000 people of all ages, many of them young, attended the latest candlelight vigil. Thousands more stood on nearby streets, prevented by police from entering the overcrowded park for safety reasons.

Across China, protests and accurate information about the Beijing Massacre are banned in favor of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda. Only Hong Kong, the special administrative region that thrived under British rule before reverting to China in 1997, has the freedom and pluck to engage in such large-scale defiance.

Twenty-one years ago, Chinese student-protesters had occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing to demand a better nation, one with less corruption, greater freedoms and more democratic politics. The protests spread to other cities, alarming national leaders, who unleashed the military. Thousands of unarmed people died in the ensuing crackdown. Others suffered crippling injuries, like limbs lost when crushed by military vehicles. Surviving protest leaders fled or faced long jail terms.

Organizers of Hong Kong's candlelight vigil said this year’s “overwhelming” turnout topped expectations. Of course, Hong Kong people have their own deep grievances too, especially a hapless “chief executive”, with no popular mandate, who ignores their desires to obey the CCP.

As always, chief executive Donald Tsang and his unelected advisors stayed away from the candlelight vigil, although it's Hong Kong’s most important and emotional annual event. Populist situations tend to frighten them.


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Massacre Message Remembered


Candle held high, a man places a hand on his heart.


An estimated 150,000 people attend the vigil.


Even participants too young to remember
the massacre take time to honor the dead.


Why not devote two hands to the task?


On this night, people stand tall for truth and justice.


Hong Kong young people look determined
to sustain the spirit of the 1989 protests.


A tight grip on the flame: how long must China's
citizens wait to secure basic political freedoms?

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