Annual June 4 remembrance march to end at Hong Kong liaison office for first time
Demonstrators in this year’s annual march ahead of the June 4 vigil will end their route at the liaison office of the central government in Hong Kong, a symbolic destination at which they intend to express their hope for a more democratic China.
This is the first time the march, usually held on the Sunday before the vigil, is to wind up at the liaison office since it moved to Sai Ying Pun in 2000. Because the destination has been changed from the usual end point at the central government’s office in Tamar, marchers will gather at the Southorn Playground in Wan Chai on Sunday, instead of Victoria Park.
The march’s organiser, the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said because Beijing was in control of local affairs, including political reform, and was responsible for suppression in China, the new destination was part of a broadening in scope of the annual gathering to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
This year, leaders of student unions at several universities have decided to skip the vigil in protest at one of the alliance’s slogans: to "build a democratic China". They think Hongkongers should mind their own business and stop the fruitless fight for a reversal of the official verdict that the protests on June 4 amounted to a "counterrevolutionary riot".
Hong Kong is the only place in China to allow public commemoration of the students who took part in pro-democracy protests and were killed in the subsequent military crackdown.
Last year, about 3,000 people braved the heat and rival protesters on a march to mark the Tiananmen Square crackdown. But police said only 1,900 turned up, far below the 8,000 who took to the streets in 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary.
