Hong Kong Leader Carrie Lam On Whether Tiananmen Vigil Breaches Security Law

Hong Kong leader responds to questions about whether the city’s annual June 4 vigil marking China’s 1989 Tiananmen crackdown breaches the national security law.

“It much depends on what is going to happen in those gatherings and whether they will fall into the offences expressly prohibited in the national security law," said Lam.

Last year, thousands gathered across Hong Kong to commemorate victims of China’s military crackdown in Tiananmen Square, defying an unprecedented ban on congregating for the 2020 vigil.

Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed administration said the rally couldn’t go forward because of a ban on gatherings of more than eight people, citing the Covid-19 pandemic. But activists, opposition politicians and critics called it a deliberate attempt to stifle free speech, pointing out that the virus was at that time mostly under control in the city and that larger groups regularly gather in public without any issues from the authorities.

For the past 30+ years, residents of the semi-autonomous city had held a candlelight vigil that draws tens of thousands of attendees for an annual memorial to those who lost their lives when China’s leadership ordered troops to fire on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s central square and the nearby streets. Estimates of the dead have ranged from hundreds to thousands: there’s never been an independent investigation.

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