Detained organizer of Tiananmen vigil to fast in remembrance of victims
An organizer of Hong Kong’s annual candlelit vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown planned to go on a hunger strike following her arrest on Friday, her family and friends said.
Barrister Chow Hang-tung intended to fast for one day in custody, to mourn pro-democracy demonstrators who died in the bloody crackdown in Beijing on June 4, 1989, they said.
Chow is vice chairperson of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organizes the annual vigil. She was arrested by police outside her office in Central early on Friday.
Chow was able to contact her lawyer, and is being treated well in detention, according to her family and friends.
Police said Chow violated the Public Order Ordinance by advertising or publicizing information about an unauthorized assembly, on social media. Another 20-year-old man, a food delivery worker, was also arrested.
The alliance’s application to hold the annual vigil in Victoria Park, in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, was rejected by police last month, and a subsequent appeal was dismissed.
Terry Law, senior superintendent of the force’s New Territories South Regional Headquarters, said Chow continued to promote the vigil on social media, urging people to join even after it had been banned.
In a Facebook message posted on Thursday, Chow included a photo of a previous candlelit vigil and a statue of the Goddess of Democracy. “Lights everywhere. It can be a torch on mobile phones, a real candle, or an electronic candle. 8.p.m. June 4. Let us light a candle,” she wrote in the message.
In another post last Saturday, the barrister wrote that she would light a candle in her personal capacity at 8 p.m. on June 4 to “honor a 32-year commitment.” She did not specify where she would perform this, saying only that she would go to a “visible place.”
Chow’s boyfriend and mainland human rights lawyer, Wu Yangwei, said he and his girlfriend had thought about the possibility of arrest when Chow posted her messages. But Chow chose to stand by her values because she was saddened by the deterioration of rights in Hong Kong, Wu said.
If Hongkongers gave up their right to speak their minds, Hong Kong would be reduced to a city no different from those in mainland China, Wu added.
The Hong Kong Democracy Council, a group of United States-based Hongkongers, slammed Hong Kong authorities over Chow’s arrest, saying people in the city could now be prosecuted for their speech and thoughts. The group urged people from around the world to mourn the deaths of the June 4, 1989, crackdown.
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