Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Hong Kong to mark the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Hong Kong and Macau are the only places in China where people can commemorate the activists killed in 1989.
China has never said how many people died in the crackdown, but hundreds are believed to have been killed.
Organisers say 180,000 people took part in a vigil, centred in the city’s Victoria Park.
But police put the number of attendees at less than 40,000.
Elsewhere in China, the authorities have banned even oblique references to the crackdown, which took place after weeks of mass protests that were tolerated by the government. The numbers gathered in and around the square are estimated to have reached a peak of one million people.
Hundreds of security personnel and police were monitoring the square in Beijing on Tuesday.
Hong Kong’s Victoria Park is once again a sea of candlelight as far as the eye can see.
The crowd, many dressed in black, is mostly silent whilst holding up their candles in mourning. Some are crying. In between protest songs, they chant “the people will not forget”.
The crowd clap and cheer when Liane Lee – who took part in the 1989 protests – shouts: “We refuse to forget. We refuse to believe the lies”.
Standing watching is Teresa Chan. She has attended the commemoration every year since 1990, except once when she was ill.
“I wanted to go to Beijing to be with the movement but I couldn’t,” she says. “I never imagined it would end the way it did, it’s very hard to forget.”
But there are also new faces in the crowd this year.
Ms Leung, who is in her 30s, says she decided to come for the first time because she is worried about Hong Kong’s future.
“I am very angry with what the Chinese government is doing here,” she says.
Amongst the remembrance flowers and candles, there are posters protesting against proposed amendments to laws concerning extraditions to mainland China. Many fear the changes will lead to the further erosion of civil liberties here in Hong Kong.
Here in Victoria Park are also some mainland Chinese residents like Mr Zeng who travelled to Hong Kong with his wife and 11-year-old daughter just to attend tonight’s event. –BBC
