Organizers claim record turnout in Hong Kong vigil (2nd Roundup)

Jun 4, 2009, 15:43 GMT

Hong Kong - A record number of people crowded into Hong Kong's Victoria Park Thursday night to attend a candlelight vigil to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the crushing of the pro-democracy uprising in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Organizers put the turnout at around 200,000, which if correct would make the crowd the largest ever for the annual rally, the only public commemoration on Chinese soil.

They claimed more 150,000 crammed into the park while another 50,000 unable to gain entry spilled over outside.

The figure far exceeds the 150,000 previous record turnout which was estimated on the first anniversary of the massacre in 1990.

Police however as usual claimed a much lower figure of just under 63,000.

People began streaming into the park early in the evening and were still arriving at 9 pm, making the park a sea of candlelight.

Some wore T-shirts bearing the words: 'Donald Tsang you don't represent me' in protest over the comments made by the Hong Kong leader last month when he claimed to represent the view of the community in saying that most people in the city wanted to put the June 4, 1989 crushing of the Tiananmen Square demos behind them.

On the stage was a banner proclaiming in Chinese: 'June 4th, 20 years - passing the fire to the next generation.'

Organizers claimed thousands had been compelled to join the vigil in protest over Tsang's remarks.

Legislator Lee Cheuk-yan, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, insisted the turnout was in excess of 150,000.

'This sends a very clear message to the Chinese government that the people of Hong Kong have not forgotten and cannot forgive what happened 20 years ago,' Lee said.

During the evening, those taking part observed a minute's silence for the dead and listened to speeches by former students who took part in the 1989 protest.

One of those speaking was Xiong Yan, who fled to the United States in 1992 and was considered one of the 21 most-wanted protest leaders by China.

However, other student leaders were refused entry into Hong Kong, prompting claims that the government had a blacklist.

Xiang Xiaoji, one of the student leaders who spoke to government officials in Beijing in 1989 before the protests were crushed, was put on a plane back to the US by immigration officials at Hong Kong International Airport early Wednesday.

The government of Hong Kong has denied it has a blacklist, saying it only kept a surveillance list and considered each case individually.

People in Hong Kong were horrified by the events of June 4, 1989, when troops killed hundreds and possibly thousands of student protestors in the heart of the Chinese capital.

The massacre had particular poignancy for people in the city of 7 million, then still a British colony but only eight years away from reverting to Chinese rule in 1997.

Although Hong Kong is now part of China, the annual Tiananmen commemoration is allowed because of Hong Kong's status as a special administrative region where citizens are granted freedom of speech.