Hong Kong detains 8 people on eve of Tiananmen Square anniversary

Source: AP

By KANIS LEUNG

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police detained eight people, including activists and artists, on the eve of the 34th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, a move that signals the city’s shrinking freedom of expression.

Police said in a statement late Saturday that four people have been arrested for allegedly disrupting order in public spaces or carrying out acts with seditious intent. Four others were taken away for investigation on suspicion of breaching public peace. Authorities did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.

For decades, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers held an annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park each June 4 to commemorate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, in which tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed.

During the pandemic, protests in Hong Kong were rare due to COVID-19 restrictions. In addition, many activists there have been silenced or jailed after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law following massive protests in 2019. When the British handed Hong Kong to Beijing in 1997, it was promised 50 years of self-government and freedoms of assembly, speech and press that are not allowed on the Chinese mainland, but critics say those freedoms are being eroded.




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