Hong Kong - Organizers of the annual candlelight vigil held
in Hong Kong to mark the Chinese government's Tiananmen crackdown
have predicted a record turnout for the event Thursday, the 20th
anniversary of the 1989 killings.
Around 100,000 people are expected to gather at Hong Kong's
Victoria Park Thursday evening, despite predictions of rain, for the
only public commemoration of the massacre on Chinese soil.
Up to 70,000 people have attended the vigil in previous years and
turnouts have always been in the tens of thousands, according to
organizers' estimates.
Last year, organizers said 48,000 people took part, although
police put the number at a much lower 16,000.
Democratic Party legislator Cheung Man-kwong Thursday urged people
not to let the rain dampen spirits, reminding them that the first
vigil in 1989 had been held when there was a typhoon warning.
'No matter how heavy the rain, the candles will not go dark. The
world is expecting the candlelight to shine in Victoria Park,' he
said.
The highlight of the event will be a one-minute silence to
remember the dead, plus speeches by former students who took part in
the 1989 protests, including Xiong Yan, who fled to the United States
in 1992 and was considered one of the 21 most wanted protest leaders
by China.
Xiong stepped on Chinese soil for the first time in 17 years when
he returned to Hong Kong last Saturday.
However, other students leaders have been refused entry prompting
claims that Hong Kong had a blacklist.
Xiang Xiaoji, one of the student leaders who spoke to government
officials in Beijing in 1989 before the protests were crushed, was
put on a plane back to the US by immigration officials at Hong Kong
International Airport early Wednesday.
He had previously been allowed into Hong Kong in 1999 to attend a
pro-democracy conference.
Three other Chinese dissidents living in the US have also been
refused entry to Hong Kong along with Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot,
known for his work on the Tiananmen massacre called The Pillar of
Shame.
The government of Hong Kong has denied it has a blacklist saying
it only kept a surveillance list and considered each case
individually.
People in Hong Kong were horrified by the events of June 4, 1989,
when troops killed hundreds and possibly thousands of student
protestors in the heart of the Chinese capital.
The massacre had particular poignancy for people in the city of 7
million, then still a British colony but only eight years away from
reverting to Chinese rule in 1997.
Although Hong Kong is now part of China, the annual Tiananmen
commemoration is allowed because of Hong Kong's status as a special
administrative region where citizens are granted freedom of speech.
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