Hong Kong police out in force to prevent Tiananmen commemoration

As many as 7,000 police will be deployed for ‘stop and search’ after annual vigil was banned for a second year.

Thousands of police were deployed in Hong Kong on Friday and the organiser of the territory’s now-banned annual vigil of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown arrested, to prevent people from gathering for any kind of remembrance of the events of 1989. Hong Kong usually holds a mass vigil to remember those killed when soldiers stormed the square, which was packed with protesters calling for democracy, but police have banned the events for the past two years blaming the coronavirus pandemic. This year is the first to be held since China imposed national security legislation on Hong Kong that punishes anything Beijing deems subversion, secession, “terrorism” or collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.