This year is the anniversary of 23 years of Tiananmen Massacre. As always, there was a candlelight vigil at the Victoria Park of Hong Kong. Its aim is to remember the victims who fought for democracy and against government corruption. 180,000 people attended the rally and the number broke the record. The Victoria Park was full of candlelight and became ‘a sea of conscience’. Many cities in mainland China also had some commemorative activities. Many Hong Kong people attended the rally:

(1)    to protest against the suppression on pro-democracy activists, dissidents and human rights lawyers; to demand the release of political prisoners; to stop the violence on political dissidents such as harassment, torture and murder.

(2)    to complain about the luxurious lifestyle of the HKSAR Chief Executive, Donald Tsang as well as about the hardship caused by inflation.

(3)    to remind the new Chief Executive not to restrict democracy and liberty in Hong Kong through imposing an authoritative regime (such as implementing Article 23 of the Basic Law)

As more and more cities approve free travel for its residents for Hong Kong tours, many visitors from the mainland joined the demonstration and candlelight rally.

The organizer of the vigil, Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China (the Alliance) and other parties received a good sum of donations. The Alliance received HKD 2.32 million. Parties such as the League of Social Democracy received HKD 230,000, 130% more than last year.

Before the vigil, 40 members of the Hong Kong Federation of Students held 64 hours of hunger strike, in order to deliver a message of not forgetting the victims of June-4 Massacre.

Fang Zheng, one of the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown, appeared at the vigil. He was wounded when a tank ran over him, and at that time, he was shouldering his fainted schoolmate. His legs were amputated and had to use a wheelchair. He denounced the bloody massacre.

According to Apple Daily, dated 1 June 2012, about 6,000 activists and leaders were arrested soon after the Tiananmen crackdown, among which, one-tenth was sent to prison, and over one hundred people received life imprisonment or death sentence with a two-year reprieve. A total of 187,000 people were arrested due to participation in the June-4 Democratic Movement, in which 65,000 were sentenced to prison.

Not only in Hong Kong, other cities in mainland China also had actions to commemorate June-4 Massacre.

(1)    In Guiyang City of Guizhou Province, on the square, some people openly held up a banner and cried out the slogan: accountability to the Massacre and abolition of political suppression. The demonstration lasted for two hours and attracted a lot of onlookers. The authority did not intervene.

(2)    In Nanping City of Fuzhou of Fujian Province, 16 people held banners saying “Rehabilitation of June-4” and “We Are Gravediggers for Greedy and Corrupt Officials”. Many people were attracted to the demonstration.

(3)    Some netizens were arrested by public security, for example, Huang Bing, a netizen from Zhengzhou City, was arrested because he put a sticker of “Not to Forget June-4” on a bookstore. Sun Desheng, human rights activist from Guangzhou City, was summoned and his house was searched.

(4)    In Shenzhen, some young people gathered together to commemorate the victims of June-4.

(5)    In Beijing City, it was announced that “the wartime operation mechanism and equivalent defense system” was turned on. Even though under residential surveillance, Sun Wenqing, a retired professor of Shangdong University, went out to hold a banner of “Rehabilitation of June-4” which later was grabbed by public security. The website of Jasmine Revolution urged mainland Chinese to wear black clothes and black glasses, then to go for a walk on the square at 2pm on June 4.

(6)    In the USA, some mainland Chinese students, who were born after 1980s, wrote a joint letter to Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, requesting to vindicate the June-4 incident at the coming 18^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

        There are more similar activities that have not been reported. It is impossible for the authorities in the near future to take an initiative to admit to the bloody crackdown. Only when people unite together will there be a change. The commemorative activities at different places obviously show that people are working together for a common goal.