HONG KONG — At least 1,500 people gathered in a Hong Kong park Sunday to commemorate a democracy icon who helped dissidents escape China after the Tiananmen crackdown.
People sang songs and held candles at a memorial ceremony for Szeto Wah in Victoria Park, which hosts a huge annual gathering every June 4, the date in 1989 when China began its bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen protests which saw hundreds, if not thousands, killed.
As well as helping dissidents escape, Szeto, who died of cancer aged 79 last month, founded the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
The organisation regularly criticised Beijing for human rights abuses and pushed for political reforms in Hong Kong.
His funeral last month sparked controversy after two former student leaders exiled from China and who were close to Szeto were refused entry to Hong Kong for the ceremony by immigration officials.
That sparked claims Beijing was tightening its grip on the former British colony.
Activists Wang Dan and Wu’er Kaixi, both of whom now live in Taiwan, said the move to bar them showed Beijing was strengthening its hold on the officially autonomous territory — despite the “one country, two systems” concept under which Beijing governs Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macau.
Hong Kong’s immigration department declined comment on the issue, saying in a statement that it would “take into account all relevant factors and circumstances pertaining to each individual case”.
