June 4 organisers call on police to respect rights

Organisers of the annual June 4 candlelight vigil said on Sunday they would urge police to respect people’s right to assembly when they discuss holding a march and rally to remember the 1989 crackdown on democracy supporters in Tiananmen Square.

Richard Choi from the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China was speaking to reporters outside Beijing’s liaison office in Western, after completing an annual run to remember the crackdown on the democracy movement.

Choi said Alliance members would meet police on Thursday to discuss holding a protest, and then again on May 25 about staging the annual candlelight vigil for June 4.

He said whether or not police object to its events, the alliance would continue to uphold its beliefs.

“It’s hard to say and to predict what’s the result, whether the police will object or not object [our applications]. But in principal, we will continue to urge the police that it’s the Hong Kong people’s basic right to have peaceful assembly,” Choi said.

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department had already said it wouldn’t let the alliance use Victoria Park for the vigil “in view of the latest coronavirus situation”.

There was a heavy police presence around the liaison office as the four alliance members finished their mini-marathon. They started from Victoria Park in Causeway Bay and ran past the former Xinhua news agency office, the government headquarters and the Pillar of Shame at the University of Hong Kong.

As they arrived at the liaison office, they chanted “Vindicating June 4 is getting closer” and stuck a Goddess of Democracy sticker on one of the water barriers surrounding the complex.

Separately, Choi said he would plead guilty to taking part in an unauthorised assembly on October 1, 2019 when the trial begins on Monday. He said he would use his own way to remember the crackdown even if he was in prison.