Slogans marking the anniversary of the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown outside Victoria Park in Hong Kong were covered up on Saturday, a day after police went to great lengths to stop Hongkongers from holding a candlelight vigil inside.

Black cloth was draped over the spray-painted slogan “Do not let June 4 become a banned term” and a placard with the words “Nothing ever happened on June 4,” which were on a wall outside the park, as of Saturday morning.

Police had blocked the annual gathering for the second year in a row on health grounds, and reportedly deployed 7,000 officers in view of people defying the ban last year. The barricaded park was left eerily empty at night on the 32nd anniversary of Beijing’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, a stark contrast to the previous three decades when crowds would light up the dark with their candles, sing songs and chant slogans.

Hongkongers tried ways and means to avoid arrest for unauthorized assembly or national security breaches, such as by walking in black clothes around Causeway Bay, where the park was located, holding up their lit phones and shouting the occasional slogan.

As officers retreated and lifted the blockades, the only signs of commemoration were blown-out candles that lay strewn on the ground and white ribbons tied to railings near the park.

One elderly man who was at the park in the morning told Apple Daily that he believed nothing could stop people from remembering what had happened on that tragic night 32 years ago, when the military wiped out hundreds of protesters, if not more.

“Even if one day, Victoria Park becomes China’s centennial memorial park, Xi Jinping memorial park or whatever you call it, or even if it remains closed forever, I believe those who mourn and remember [June 4], as long as there are people who want to, will flourish everywhere,” said the man, who did not wish to be identified.

He then quoted the song “Flower of Freedom,” which had been sung at every June 4 vigil. “But there is a dream, it will not die, remember it! / No matter how hard the rain falls, freedom still will bloom,” he sang, momentarily faltering at the line “freedom still will bloom?” After a short pause, he said firmly: “I believe freedom will blossom.”

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