This year marks the 37th anniversary of the Beijing government’s massacre of pro-democracy protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Since the Chinese Communist Party imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong, June 4 commemorations can no longer be held there.
However, Hongkongers in the United Kingdom have not given up publicly commemorating this historic struggle for freedom and democracy and continue to organise commemorative events across the country.
In recent weeks, Hong Kong pro-democracy groups throughout the UK have held or will hold June 4 memorial events.
In Reading, more than 200 residents from across the country attended a vigil at Reading Minster, organised by a Hong Kong pro-democracy group based in Wokingham and Reading.
Members of Parliament, including Wokingham’s Clive Jones, together with more than ten borough councillors from various local authorities and political parties, attended the event as invited guests.
The group hopes the event will raise greater awareness among the British public.
Wokingham borough councillor Andy Ng Siu-hong, a participant in the Hong Kong pro-democracy group, former Hong Kong district councillor who was forced to leave Hong Kong for safety reasons, spoke at the Reading vigil and will also speak at a forthcoming commemoration in Sutton.
He said: “We will not give up commemorating this movement against authoritarianism. Democracy and human rights are universal values that we all share.
”From Reading to Sutton, from councils to Parliament, we must continue to pay attention to the Chinese Communist Party’s suppression of democracy and human rights, both inside and outside its borders.
“We must continue to speak out.”
