Hong Kong’s student leaders to miss Tiananmen Square vigil for first time after split with organisers
The annual event in Causeway Bay is the biggest rally in the world commemorating the crackdown
Student leaders will for the first time be absent from the annual candlelight vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown, amid the rise of localist sentiment in Hong Kong.
Representatives from the Hong Kong Federation of Students, the city’s biggest student body, which co-led the pro-democracy Occupy sit-ins in 2014, have been giving speeches at the candlelight vigil in Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park every June 4 for more than two decades.
On that day in 1989, the Chinese government opened fire on protesters in Beijing, killing hundreds. Some reports put the death toll over a thousand.
Since then hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers have attended the vigil every year. It is the biggest rally in the world commemorating the crackdown.
