Group behind HK's annual Tiannamen vigil disbands amid probe
A Hong Kong group that organizes an annual vigil on June 4 to remember protesters killed in China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown will disband, it said today, after facing national security charges. The democracy group is the latest of dozens of civil society bodies to fold over the past year, from a key trade union grouping to the largest teachers' union, after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in the city.
"I believe Hong Kong people, no matter their capacity, will continue to commemorate June 4 as before," Richard Tsoi, the secretary of the group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, told reporters.A vote today to disband was supported by 41 of its members with four opposed, Tsoi said.
Authorities froze HK$2.2 million (RM1.2 million) of the group's assets this month after it was charged with inciting subversion under the new law. Activist group Student Politicism, which had four current and former members charged this week, will also close, it said on its Facebook page yesterday.Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly denied curbing human rights and freedoms, saying law enforcement has been based on evidence and have nothing to do with the background, profession or political beliefs of those arrested.
An authoritarian chill cloaks most aspects of life in the former British colony after the new law, which prescribes terms of up to life in jail for anything China deems to be subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Since the new law was introduced, most democratic politicians and activists have been jailed or fled abroad.Alliance leaders Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan, already jailed over large anti-government protests in 2019 that roiled the city, were also charged with inciting subversion, as well as another of its officials, vice chairwoman Chow Hang Tung.
