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Thousands in Hong Kong expected for Tiananmen vigil
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Thousands in Hong Kong expected for Tiananmen vigil
AFP - Friday, June 4
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Thousands in Hong Kong expected for Tiananmen vigil
HONG KONG (AFP) - – Thousands in Hong Kong were expected Friday to commemorate the bloody 1989 crackdown on democracy protests in Beijing, as agitation against China's stewardship intensifies in the ex-British colony.
The vigil comes after a week of controversy in Hong Kong, with 13 activists arrested Saturday after clashing with police over their attempt to erect a "Goddess of Democracy" statue in the Times Square shopping district.
The statue emulated the papier-mache edifice that in 1989 became a worldwide symbol of the pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, which were crushed by the army at the cost of hundreds if not thousands of lives.
The annual vigil in Hong Kong, which last year drew upwards of 150,000 people for the 20th anniversary, has become a touchstone for a movement calling for democracy in China and the campaign to overturn Beijing's official verdict condemning the demonstrations as a counter-revolutionary uprising.
In central Beijing Friday, black cars marked "special police" -- each manned with two armed officers wearing helmets and flak jackets -- were seen patrolling at regular intervals.
Near the vast square itself, the police presence was far less heavy than for last year's 20th anniversary.
One taxi driver, asked about the anniversary, said: "I wouldn't have thought of that if you hadn't raised it.
"I was 15 at the time but I didn't see much and in the past 21 years, no one has really raised the issue," he said, asking not to be named.
"But to be honest, Chinese people don't care about politics, they just care about living."
Hong Kong has a separate legal system from China as part of the deal that returned the former British colony to Chinese rule in 1997, and it remains a centre for dissident activity because of its vigorous devotion to free speech.
Organisers hoped that at least 50,000 people would attend the candle-lit vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park later Friday, one-third of the turnout for last year.
"It will probably be very different than last year," said Richard Tsoi, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
"But we're hoping of course that many people will come. This is still a very important event."
In the run-up to this year's anniversary, families of those killed in 1989 demanded that Beijing end its silence and open a dialogue on the bloodshed.
"Can it be that you really want to wear us all down or wait for our deaths so that the problem will naturally disappear?" said an annual open letter signed this year by 128 members of the "Tiananmen Mothers" group.
On Tuesday, a Chinese newspaper reportedly published a cartoon that showed a boy's drawing of a row of tanks moving toward a solitary figure. It was an apparent reference to the famous photograph of a lone man holding up a tank convoy on a Beijing street.
The cartoon in the Southern Metropolitan Daily was yanked off the newspaper's website, apparently underlining official nervousness over depictions of the Tiananmen protests.
Sculptor Chen Weiming, a New Zealand national who lives in the United States, was deported Wednesday after he tried to enter Hong Kong to inspect the "Goddess of Democracy" statue's condition, according to legislator James To.
Administrators at Chinese University of Hong Kong then rejected a plan by students to erect the replica statue on campus grounds, arguing the university had to stay politically neutral.
Campaigners in Hong Kong are already upset over what they say is Chinese interference over the pace of democratic reform in the wealthy financial hub, where elections are skewed in favour of pro-Beijing business elites.
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