Group Behind Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Vigil Denies Foreign Ties

The group behind the annual Tiananmen Square memorial vigil in Hong Kong said Sunday it will not cooperate with police conducting a national security investigation into the group’s activities, calling it an abuse of power.

Police notified the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China last month that it was under investigation for working for foreign interests, an accusation the group denied.

At a news conference called to address the police investigation, Chow Han Tung, vice chairwoman of the alliance, said this was a really bad precedent of the national security (police) abusing the power by arbitrarily labeling any civil organization as a foreign agent.

She said, “the alliance strongly denies that we are any foreign agents,” Chow said. “We are an organization that was founded during the 1989 democratic movement, it was founded by the Hong Kong people.”

The investigation is part of a broad crackdown on Hong Kong civil society following mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.

 Authorities have tightened control over the city with a sweeping national security law imposed by China’s ruling Communist Party that effectively criminalized opposition to the government. The law and other changes have forced several civil organizations to disband or seen their leaders arrested.

The annual candlelight vigil honors the students who died when China’s military violently suppressed massive pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Authorities responded in the afternoon to the group’s announcement with a warning and reiterated they needed information about “certain foreign agents” although they did not name anyone specifically.