Hong Kong Police to Try to Stifle Any Commemoration of Tiananmen Crackdown

HONG KONG - Thousands of Hong Kong police are expected to surround a central park and patrol the city's streets on Friday to prevent people from gathering to commemorate the 1989 crackdown by Chinese troops in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Critics say the heightened vigilance from authorities is a marked departure from Hong Kong's cherished freedoms of speech and assembly, bringing the global financial hub closer in line with mainland China's strict controls on society. The former British colony, promised a high degree of autonomy from Beijing upon its return to Chinese rule in 1997, has traditionally held the world's largest vigil for the Tiananmen victims. Police have banned the vigil for a second year in a row, citing the coronavirus. It did not say whether commemorating Tiananmen would breach a sweeping national security law China imposed in 2020 to set its most restive city onto an authoritarian path.