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Bobby Yip | Reuters
People take part in a candlelight vigil to mark the 29th anniversary of the crackdown of pro-democracy movement at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, China June 4, 2018.
Thousands of Hong Kong citizens held candles and paused for a moment’s silence Monday night to mark the suppression of pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The annual ceremony marked 29 years since Chinese authorities used tanks and soldiers to clear the square that had been occupied for weeks by students and workers.
Estimates by scholars and human rights advocates vary over how many people died in the crackdown, with figures ranging from the hundreds to the thousands.
The Hong Kong ceremony included speeches, a eulogy for the victims and a moment of silence. Videos of the Tiananmen protests and crackdown, including images of the iconic “tank man” protester, were shown on a giant screen.
Also visible at the venue for the protest, a local park named after Queen Victoria, was a mock-up of the “Goddess of Democracy” statue that became a symbol of the 1989 protests.
Hong Kong police estimated that as many as 17,000 people participated in the vigil Monday at its peak, down slightly from last year’s 18,000. Rally organizers, meanwhile, claimed more than 100,000 took part.
Freedom of speech and assembly in Hong Kong are guaranteed under a Basic Law, or mini-constitution, worked out by British and Chinese officials.
British rule ended and Hong Kong became a special administrative region of China on July 1, 1997. Beijing promised that the so-called one country, two systems framework would be unchanged for 50 years.
