Hong Kong police arrested the artists
At least four people were arrested ahead of the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square movement.
On June 3, 2023, a day before the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, police searched and arrested two men carrying white flowers at Causeway Bay near Victoria Park in Hong Kong.
YAN ZHAO/AFP
On a street in the bustling Causeway Bay district, artist Sanmu Chen sang “Remember June 4th! People of Hong Kong, fear them not! A policeman yelled at him to “stop speaking treasonous words”. The man was then loaded into a police van, the AFP journalist noted.
Another performance artist, San Mei-tung, was also taken.
The police also arrested a young couple who were holding white chrysanthemums as a symbol of mourning. When AFP asked if they had been arrested, the man replied, “I don’t know anything,” before being called away.
New Act from 2020
For more than 30 years, tens of thousands of people have gathered every year in Victoria Park to light candles in memory of more than 1,000 peaceful demonstrators who fell to the bullets of repression in the square on June 4, 1989. in Beijing.
But since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, authorities have put an end to these gatherings and pushed artists involved in these monuments to produce their performances outside the Chinese metropolis.
As this year’s Remembrance Day approaches, officials have repeatedly refused to confirm whether public commemoration of the event is illegal, saying only that “everyone must act within the law.”
AFP
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