Hong Kong's Catholic church declines to say if Tiananmen mass will take place after 3 years of cancellations
Hong Kong's Catholic church has declined to say if it will hold a mass this year to commemorate victims of the Tiananmen crackdown, after scrapping the event in the past three years.
When asked if the church would resume the memorial mass on Wednesday – which is June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown – the communications office said it had held a service last week to pray for the Catholic church in China.
The Hong Kong Catholic Social Communication Office said in an email on Friday that May 24 had been designated as the 'World Day of Prayer for the Church in China.'
Cardinal Stephen Chow 'presided over a Solemn Mass on 24th May this year… at the Cathedral to devote to 'Mary Help of Christians' and to pray for the Church in China,' the office wrote in an email to HKFP.
Last year, the Catholic church gave a similar email reply when asked if it would organise a mass. No mass was eventually held on the anniversary.
The Catholic church's Tiananmen mass was part of Hong Kong's tradition of mourning the victims of the 1989 crackdown for more than three decades until it was cancelled for the first time in 2022. It has not resumed since.
The church at that time cited concerns about members potentially breaching the national security law, which Beijing imposed in 2020 after the pro-democracy protests and unrest that began the year before.
Last year, Cardinal Chow wrote in an open prayer that only through forgiveness would people be able to heal from events that took place '35 years ago in the capital city,' an apparent reference to the 1989 crackdown.
Patriotic carnival to return in Victoria Park
Public remembrance of the Tiananmen crackdown has become rare since the enactment of Beijing's national security law.
In Victoria Park, where Tiananmen vigils took place on the anniversary for three decades, pro-Beijing groups are scheduled to run a patriotic food carnival for the third straight year in the days spanning June 4.
The Hometown Market will be held from Sunday to next Thursday, according to the organisers' Facebook page.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Beijing-imposed national security law, tens of thousands of Hongkongers gathered for an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to mourn the bloody crackdown on student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
The number of deaths is not known, but it is believed that hundreds, if not thousands, died during the People's Liberation Army's dispersal of protesters that day.
Police banned the Tiananmen vigil gathering at Victoria Park for the first time in 2020, citing Covid-19 restrictions, and imposed the ban again in 2021, nearly a year after the national security law came into effect.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which organised the vigils, disbanded in September 2021 after several of its members were arrested.
No official commemoration has been held since then.
But HKFP reporters saw individuals lighting up the torch on their phones or holding LED candles in the vicinity of Victoria Park on June 4 last year, in gestures they said were in remembrance of the Tiananmen crackdown.
A heavy police presence was also seen near the park as officers stopped people and conducted searches.
In recent years, the Hong Kong government has referred to the Tiananmen anniversary as a 'sensitive date,' while statues and artworks paying tribute to the 1989 crackdown have also been removed from the city's university campuses.
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