HONG KONG -- Thousands of people in Hong Kong defied a police ban Thursday evening, breaking through barricades to hold a candlelight vigil on the 31st anniversary of China's crushing of a democracy movement centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
With democracy snuffed out in the mainland, the focus has shifted increasingly to semi-autonomous Hong Kong, where authorities for the first time banned the annual vigil that remembers victims of the 1989 crackdown.
Beijing is taking a tougher stance after months of anti-government protests last year, in what activists see as an accelerating erosion of the city's rights and liberties.
Earlier Thursday, the Hong Kong legislature passed a law making it a crime to disrespect China's national anthem. It passed with 41-1. Most of the pro-democracy lawmakers boycotted the vote out of protest.
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Raising a sign that said "A murderous regime stinks for ten thousand years," lawmaker Ray Chan walked to the front with the pot hidden inside a Chinese paper lantern. When security guards tried to stop him, he dropped the lantern and the pot, and was ejected from the meeting. Another lawmaker who accompanied him was also ejected.
The chamber was evacuated and police and firefighters were called in to investigate the incident.
The pro-Beijing majority in the legislature said the law is necessary for Hong Kong citizens to show appropriate respect for the anthem.
Despite the police ban, crowds poured into Victoria Park to light candles and observe a minute of silence. Many chanted "Democracy now"and "Stand for freedom, stand with Hong Kong."
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While police played recordings warning people not to participate in the unauthorized gathering, they did little to stop people from entering the park. Authorities had cited the need for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic in barricading the sprawling park, but activists saw the outbreak as a convenient excuse.
Police said they made arrests in the city's Mongkok district, where large crowds also rallied. When several protesters tried to block a road, officers rushed to detain them, using pepper spray and raising a blue flag to warn them to disperse or they would use force on the unauthorized gathering. On Twitter, they urged people not to gather in groups because of the coronavirus.
After the vigil ended in Victoria Park, groups of protesters dressed in black carried flags that said, "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times" as well as "Hong Kong Independence."
Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed when tanks and troops moved in on Tiananmen Square the night of June 3-4, 1989, to break up weeks of student-led protests that had spread to other cities and were seen as a threat to Communist Party rule.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson offered the government's standard defense of the 1989 crackdown.
"The Chinese government has made a clear conclusion about the political disturbance that occurred in the late 1980s," Zhao Lijian said. "The great achievements that we have achieved ... have fully demonstrated that the development path China has chosen is completely correct, which conforms to China's national conditions and has won the sincere support of the Chinese people."
On Thursday, the square where thousands of students had gathered in 1989 was quiet and largely empty. Police and armored vehicles stood guard on the vast space.
As has become customary, many dissidents were placed under house arrest and their communications with the outside world cut off, according to rights groups.
"We all know the Hong Kong government and the Chinese government really don't want to see the candle lights in Victoria Park," said Wu'er Kaixi, a former student leader who was No. 2 on the government's most-wanted list following the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
"The Chinese Communists want us all to forget about what happened 31 years ago," he told The Associated Press in Taiwan. "But it is the Chinese government themselves reminding the whole world that they are the same government ... doing the same in Hong Kong."
Other vigils, virtual and otherwise, were held elsewhere, including in Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy whose government called again this year for Beijing to own up to the facts of the crackdown.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted criticism of China and Hong Kong for banning the vigil earlier this week before meeting with a group of Tiananmen Square survivors at the State Department.
Zhao, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said, "We urge the U.S. to abandon ideological prejudice, correct mistakes and stop interfering in China's internal affairs in any form."
Information for this article was contributed by Ken Moritsugu, Alice Fung, Katie Tam and Taijing Wu of The Associated Press.
A Section on 06/05/2020