China: Tiananmen commemorated

Wednesday, June 23, 1999 - 10:00

Tiananmen commemorated

ABOUT 70,000 people joined a candlelight vigil on June 4 in Hong Kong in remembrance of the pro-democracy protesters massacred in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 10 years ago.

China resumed control over Hong Kong two years ago, and this sizeable turnout, the biggest mass mobilisation since 1992, is a measure of the people's determination in resist Beijing's undemocratic rule. Beijing continues to consider the Tiananmen protest in 1989 "counter-revolutionary".

About 300 people joined a similar remembrance protest in Macau, which is scheduled to revert to Chinese rule in December.

Only scanty protests have been reported in China. Beijing has arrested about 100 pro-democracy activists since May. Applications for a march on June 4 in Liaoning and Hangzhou were rejected.

A member of the banned Chinese Democracy Party in Tangshan was sentenced to four years imprisonment on May 29 for putting up a poster demanding that Beijing overturn its "counter-revolutionary" verdict on the 1989 mobilisations.

From GLW issue 365