Hong Kong Rally Protests Massacre As Chinese Takeover Looms, Tiananmen Commemoration May Be Last

In what may be the last public commemoration of its kind in Hong Kong, thousands of people marched Sunday to mark the eighth anniversary of China’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.

The rally, with people waving placards, singing songs and shouting for the release of Chinese political prisoners, has been held each year since Chinese soldiers drove protesters from Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds, possibly thousands of people.

With China set to take over the British colony in less than a month, this year’s observance was fraught with fears it might be the last.

The Beijing-approved government that takes over Hong Kong next month plans to give police greater powers to ban demonstrations, part of a package of widely criticized curbs on civil liberties.

Not least among the casualties of the 1989 crackdown was the confidence of many in Hong Kong about their future under Chinese rule.

For many who marched Sunday, fears about the future mingled with a commemoration of the past.

Eva Siu said she joined the rally for the first time this year because she feared Tiananmen observances will soon be forbidden.

“I thought this could be the last time for us to have this march,” said the 24-year-old social worker. “We are here to express our wish for a free and democratic country.”

The march contrasted with the image portrayed in China - where Tiananmen commemorations are forbidden - of a Hong Kong gleefully awaiting its return to Chinese rule.

Organizers estimated the number of marchers at more than 7,000, but the actual number seemed closer to half that. The throng walked two miles from Hong Kong’s high-rise central business district to the offices of the Xinhua News Agency, China’s de facto embassy in the colony.

The protesters, many with T-shirts bearing the slogan “Remember June 4,” left wreaths and covered Xinhua’s door with a large black banner painted with a likeness of the “Goddess of Democracy” statue that Tiananmen demonstrators erected in the square before the bloodbath on the night of June 3-4, 1989.