The annual debate in the legislature calling for remembrance and vindication of the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing will go ahead this month after the Democrats agreed yesterday to move a new motion substituting one blocked by the Legco president.
But legislator 'Long Hair' Leung Kwok-hung, who almost derailed the decade-long tradition of holding the debate, said his wish to raise public awareness had been achieved.
On Tuesday, Mr Leung and Legislative Council president Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai failed to reach agreement on the wording of the motion on the Tiananmen crackdown, leaving only one debating slot on May 30 to discuss the topic before June 4.
Mr Leung's rejected motion said that Legco 'condemns the prime culprits of the bloody crackdown' in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and demanded that 'the Chinese communist government' investigate the 'massacre' and bring those responsible to justice.
But at a hastily called press conference after an emergency meeting in the Legco corridors yesterday, leaders of the Democratic Party announced that legislator Martin Lee Chu-ming would move a motion on May 30, with simple wording urging 'the June 4 incident not be forgotten and the 1989 pro-democracy movement be vindicated'.
Party chairman Albert Ho Chun-yan said: 'It has been an established tradition to debate the motion calling for a vindication of the June 4 incident. We don't want to stop the tradition for it to be debated in the legislature before June 4 each year.'
