Adverts to condemn June 4 comments
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China is planning to publish advertisements in newspapers on June 3, condemning Ma Lik for his comments on the Tiananmen Square crackdown of June 4, 1989.
In a fund-raising event yesterday, the alliance's founding chairman, Szeto Wah, 76 - wearing his trademark sunglasses and dressed in a suit - was out and about in Causeway Bay to raise money for the campaign.
He called on the public to sign paper that will be burned during the June 4 vigil in Victoria Park as remembrance offerings for those who died in the crackdown. The adverts will demand an apology from Mr Ma, chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.
They also will ask whether his remarks reflect the opinion of his party, and whether he believes Hong Kong will not be ready for universal suffrage unless the public agrees with his take on the crackdown.
They will call on Mr Ma, as a member of the National People's Congress, to ask the central authorities to release relevant documents for a public inquiry.
Mr Ma outraged many when he disputed witness accounts of June 4, saying it was not a massacre and people had not been turned into 'minced meat' after being rolled over by tanks.
In a meeting with journalists on May 15, Mr Ma suggested throwing a pig in front of a tank to see if minced meat could be produced. He later apologised for being 'rash and frivolous' in his examples.
Yesterday, Mr Szeto called Mr Ma a coward for refusing to face the public since his remarks. 'He has the courage to say these things in a small circle but not the courage to face the consequences of what he says.'
He said he had not received a response to his invitation to Mr Ma to debate with him on Sunday in an event to 'seek the truth of June 4'.
