Remembering June 4 Not Tolerated in HK

Lee Cheuk-yan (left) promotes June 4 in the alliance's stall

For the past 32 years, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Movements in China has had a stall at Victoria Park during the Lunar New Year market in Victoria Park. Even last year it was able to sell flowers and raise awareness about the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989.

But this year the stall was shut down before it could even begin doing any business.

Just after midnight Saturday morning, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department terminated the contract for the stall, saying they displayed banners irrelevant to the selling of flowers.

For the first time in 32 years the stall is shut down

The alliance had put up a banner that said: "Vindicate June 4, fight to the end".

The supposedly offensive banners were covered with a cloth, but were light up so they were still seen in the dark.

However, by around 8.30am the stall was cordoned off with metal barricades and tape, hours after the warning was given, and nothing was removed from the stall.

Alliance chairman Lee Cheuk-yan and secretary Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong refused to leave.

"Our flower stall has a history of 32 years, and we have never stopped expressing our demands," Lee said. "Our strategy is to express our demands through flower sales, hoping that the public will remember our existence."

The group has five "operational goals": the release of dissidents, vindication of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, accountability for the crackdown, the end to one-party rule in mainland China, and to build a democratic country.

Lee said he was saddened by the "suppression" as their stall could still operate last year even though they had posted messages such as "Garden of freedom". Yet the authorities could no longer accommodate a small flower stall expressing views this year, he said.

Stall was vacated after contract was terminated

Tsoi said it was unreasonable for the FEHD to shut them down without giving a proper explanation as to why they were shutting down the alliance's stall.

Unable to sell the flowers, the alliance said they would hand out the flowers to community workers so that the blooms would not go to waste. 

In response to the case, the FEHD spokesman said the fair was a venue for selling Lunar New Year flowers, and the agreement signed between the department and the alliance clearly stated that the stall could only be used to sell and promote flowers. 

The spokesman added the department would take appropriate action to implement the agreement when necessary.

So it is clear the red line was crossed this time with the alliance. This was probably its test to see how much the authorities was willing to withstand in terms of remembering June 4, and now there is zero tolerance.

Perhaps the alliance should have been more clever in its packaging of the flowers, perhaps inserting secret messages in them or just sold flowers.

Now we know talking or promoting the remembrance of June 4 is not allowed, pandemic or not, as part of the ongoing mainlandization of Hong Kong.