(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
Hong Kong: Hong Kong police detained more than a dozen people, including prominent pro-democracy figures, AFP reporters witnessed on Sunday, the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Chan Po-ying, a veteran activist and head of the League of Social Democrats, was briefly detained in a busy Hong Kong shopping district -- an area that for years was the site of commemorations of the bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown in China.
Holding a small LED candle -- a common sight during the annual vigil -- and two flowers, Chan was immediately seized by police and hauled into a van.
According to her party, she was released about two hours later.
Other recognisable pro-democracy figures detained by police were Alexandra Wong, an activist nicknamed "Grandma Wong", former chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association Mak Yin-ting, and Leo Tang, a former leader of the now-disbanded Confederation of Trade Unions.
In total, AFP reporters saw more than a dozen people detained as of Sunday night.
One of them was a woman who shouted, "Raise candles! Mourn 64!" -- shorthand for the sensitive date.
Another was a young man dressed in black who carried a book titled "35th of May", another way to express the four days after May 31 in mainland China.
A woman reporter with a Hong Kong outlet was heard saying "I didn't do anything" as officers detained her.
And Tsui Hon-kwong, who was a former member of Hong Kong Alliance -- the group that had organised the annual Tiananmen vigil -- was also removed while holding a LED candle.
For decades Hong Kong was the only Chinese city with large-scale public commemoration of the Tiananmen events -- a key index of liberties and political pluralism afforded to its semi-autonomous status.
Since 1990, an annual vigil had been held in the city's Victoria Park, drawing tens of thousands to the candlelight memorial.
But in 2020, a national security law was imposed on the city by Beijing to quell dissent, after huge and at times violent pro-democracy demonstrations rocked the finance hub.
Since then, the vigil has been banned and its organisers arrested and charged under the security law.
Leading up to this year's anniversary, officials repeatedly refused to confirm if public mourning of the event was illegal, only saying that "everyone should act in accordance with the law".