In Hong Kong, memories of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre are being erased

The atmosphere would be at once defiant and somber. Speakers would demand accountability from the Chinese Communist Party for ordering the bloody military crackdown that cost the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed pro-democracy protesters on that fateful day in Beijing more than 30 years ago. In memory of the dead, at 8 p.m. every year the park would turn into a sea of candles, held high by people vowing never to forget.This year, whether those candles light up once again will offer a litmus test for Hong Kong, its freedoms and aspirations, and its relationships to both the rest of China and the rest of the world.Authorities in mainland China have always done their best to erase all memory of the massacre: Censoring news reports, scrubbing all mentions from the internet, arresting and chasing into exile the organizers of the protests, and keeping the relatives of those who died under tight surveillance. As a result, generations of mainland Chinese have grown up without knowledge of the events of June 4.But Hong Kong has always had the ability to remember. In the years immediately after the massacre, Hong Kong was still a British colony beyond the reach of China’s censors. And even after Britain handed sovereignty to China in 1997, the city enjoyed a semi-autonomous status that allowed the vigil to continue. Recently though, the candles in Victoria Park have been dimmed. Authorities banned the vigil in 2020 and 2021 citing coronavirus health restrictions — though many Hongkongers believe that was just an excuse to clamp down on shows of public dissent following pro-democracy protests that swept the city in 2019. In 2020, despite the lack of an organized vigil, Since the law came into effect, pro-democracy activists, former elected lawmakers and journalists have been arrested. Tens of thousands of Hongkongers have left the city, some fleeing persecution and seeking asylum overseas.The organizers of the Tiananmen vigilAnd the Catholic diocese’s decision not to mark the date came just weeks after 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of Asia’s most senior Catholic clerics and an outspoken critic of China’s Communist Party, was arrested along with three other pro-democracy activists.Still, there are those who say they will continue to speak out in whatever ways they can to keep alive the memory of Tiananmen.After former Hong Kong Alliance leader Chow Hang-tung was arrested last year, she delivered an impassioned defense in court, condemning what she said was “one step in the systemic erasure of history, both of the Tiananmen massacre and Hong Kong’s own history of civic resistance.”Even as the court prepared to hand down a 15-month sentence, she remained defiant. “No matter what the penalty is, I will continue to speak what I must,” she said in comments posted online this January. “Even if candlelight is criminalized, I will still call on people to make a stand, whether on June 4 this year or every June 4 in years to come.”CNN’s Lauren Lau contributed reporting to this story