Hong Kong Warns Protesters: Don’t ‘Test’ Police with Tiananmen Massacre Memorials

Hong Kong police warned the public on Thursday not to “test” police officers with “unauthorized assemblies” on the upcoming anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported.

“Try not to test the boundaries … as well as testing the determination or our commitment in enforcing the law in this operation,” Hong Kong Police Force Senior Superintendent Liauw Ka-kei told reporters on June 2.

“The senior officer said police action on Saturday would be ‘proportionate,’ such as giving people advice and warnings before more stringent actions like arrests,” according to HKFP.

Liauw referred to the Hong Kong government’s blanket ban this year on all public gatherings commemorating the Chinese government’s mass murder of student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. A memorial to the event traditionally took place in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on its anniversary for decades. Hong Kong’s government prohibited the mass candlelight vigil in 2020 and 2021, citing an alleged public health risk caused by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. This health-related ban remains in place this year, meaning any large outdoor gatherings — including the Tiananmen Square vigil — are forbidden.

Liauw on June 2 provided a detailed explanation of the type of outdoor activities his police force would abide on June 4, saying “it is perfectly fine” for Hongkongers with a “genuine” leisure purpose to enter Victoria Park on that day.

Continuing, the police superintendent said:

But however, as I have to stress, even though you are alone, and then coming to Victoria Park… if you are staying together with a group of people, at the same place, at the same time, with a common purpose, to express certain views, it is already meeting the definition of a meeting.

And depending on the number of persons at the scene, that may contravene offences including unauthorised assembly or due to the acts, may also contravene other more serious offences.

The Chinese Communist Party refuses to fully acknowledge the mass casualties caused by the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and often cracks down on public remembrances of the event within China. Pro-Beijing politicians have increasingly assumed Hong Kong’s top governmental posts since the summer of 2020 when the Chinese Communist Party successfully curbed a pro-democracy movement within the city that began in 2019. The Chinese Communist Party’s rubber-stamp legislature passed a National Security Law in Hong Kong on June 30, 2020, that created four new crimes: secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. Police in Hong Kong effectively extinguished the city’s pro-democracy movement by arresting its participants and charging them with the city’s new National Security crimes.