HONG KONG — A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city's shrinking freedom of expression.
Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that had for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989.
Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.
Chen said his thread was 6.4 meters (about 21 feet) long — an apparent reference to the June 4 crackdown date.
Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go. When asked by a reporter about his gesture with the red thread after his release, Chen said it was meant to express his condolences for those who died.
“It's abnormal when people monitor you when you are saying or doing something,” he told reporters.
Chen has been detained at least twice in recent years
In 2024, Chen was briefly detained on June 3 after appearing to write the Chinese characters of "eight nine six four" — a set of numbers referencing the date of the crackdown — with his hand in the air.
The year before, he was also detained on the same date in the same neighborhood, where he chanted "Hong Kongers, do not be afraid. Don't forget, tomorrow is June 4."
As night fell on Wednesday, another artist, Chan Mei-tung, stood outside a nearby department store holding up a question-mark-shaped balloon. Police officers also stopped her quickly and escorted her back to a subway station.
The police did not immediately comment Wednesday's actions.
Authorities banned vigils and arrested organizers
In 1989, under then-leader Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese military was sent to Tiananmen Square to end weeks of student-led protests on the night of June 3-4. Soldiers fired live rounds. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed, including dozens of soldiers.
Annual vigils in Hong Kong's Victoria Park used to attract tens of thousands each year until the event was banned in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.
That same year, Beijing imposed a national security law in the city following massive anti-government protests in 2019. Since then, authorities have increasingly silenced dissent. Many leading activists have been arrested and some vocal media outlets shut down. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded, including the one that organized the vigils.
Three former vigil organizers were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under the national security law. Two of them have gone on trial and are waiting a verdict, possibly in July. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The third organizer entered a guilty plea, which can typically result in a sentence reduction.
The Hong Kong and Beijing governments say the security law is crucial for the city’s stability. Hong Kong authorities say the law stipulates that human rights shall be respected and protected in safeguarding national security.
A carnival is now held at the former vigil site
After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site became the location of a yearly carnival organized by pro-China groups.
Over the past three years, some people who tried to commemorate the Tiananmen Square killings on the crackdown’s anniversary, have been detained there.
This year's carnival began on Wednesday. Later in the day near the site, Tang Ngok-kwan, who was also a vigil organizer in the past, bowed in commemoration. He told reporters he read the list of the victims in a low voice and criticized that the event name contains the word “carnival,” which carries a festive vibe.
The action by Tang and similar muted expressions in Hong Kong underlined the decline in civil liberties promised by Beijing when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
But even as public commemoration faded in Hong Kong, overseas communities keep the memories alive by hosting vigils and rallies in places like London and Canada.
Wu’er Kaixi, who was a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, told reporters in Tokyo that the democracy movement in China “is still there.”
“We are managing to survive, (it’s) not easy, but we are surviving, because just like 37 years ago, we were driven to the square, to the streets of Beijing by one thing — hope,” he said.
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Associated Press video journalist Alice Fung in Hong Kong contributed to the report.
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