Record turnout at Hong Kong Tiananmen candlelight vigil

By James Pomfret, Reuters

HONG KONG – Clad in black or white and cradling candles, Hong Kong residents transformed a park into a sea of lights on Thursday in memory of pro-democracy demonstrators killed near Beijing's Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.

Activists gather during a candlelight vigil at Hong Kong's Victoria Park June 4, 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. (REUTERS/Aaron Tam)

While China has tried to whitewash the incident over the past two decades and has tightened security around Tiananmen Square in recent days, Hong Kong has long made the most of its freedoms to openly challenge Beijing to reverse its verdict on June 4 and fully account for the killings.

The turnout was estimated at 150,000 people, organisers said, as crowds overspilled from six football pitches in a downtown park. The figure was even higher than in 1990 when the annual vigil first began, underscoring the anniversary's poignancy.

But Hong Kong police put the estimate at around 60,000.

"We will never forget June 4," the crowds chanted while singing remembrance songs, waving candles and linking arms.

Many in Hong Kong acknowledge China's economic progress since 1989, but still find the memories of June 4 impossible to forget.

"I know China is improving, but I hope that they will admit that they fired guns and did wrong," said Kong Choi-fung, a 44-year-old church worker who took her two children to the vigil.

A recent survey found a record 60 percent of Hong Kong people want China to reverse its official verdict on June 4.

ZHAO'S MEMOIRS

A British colony until 1997 when Hong Kong switched to Chinese rule, the city has enjoyed wide-ranging freedoms of expression denied most people in mainland China. But China has delayed calls for direct elections till 2017 at the earliest.

This year, painful memories have been accentuated in the city by political controversy and the symbolic 20th anniversary.

The memoirs of former Communist Party Chief Zhao Ziyang, who sided with the 1989 demonstrators, has been a publishing sensation, with some of his voice recordings played at the vigil.

Meanwhile, the city's leader Donald Tsang also drew criticism for suggesting most Hong Kong people wanted to reassess June 4, given China's economic progress since then.

Some at the vigil wore T-shirts and bandanas with the rebuke ""Donald Tsang you don't represent me".

The vigil also saw the rare appearance of a Chinese student leader from 1989, Xiong Yan, who was able to enter Hong Kong over the weekend. Other Chinese June 4 dissidents suh as Yang Jianli and Xiang Xiaoji were turned away before the anniversary.

"Hong Kong is a part of China and can influence China more than any country, more than any place," said Xiong, who was one of 21 people placed on Beijing's "most wanted list" in 1989.

"I heard a lot of people came down from China tonight. They want to experience this. That's great … where there is freedom, there is the meaning of life," he told Reuters.