Hong Kong police have carried out arrests and Chinese authorities have tightened security during the 34th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Restrictions in Hong Kong have stifled what were once the largest vigils marking the anniversary of Chinese troops' bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.
Near the previous site of yearly vigils, hundreds of police conducted stop and search operations.
Eight people were detained, including some prominent pro-democracy activists and artists.
In Beijing, additional security was seen around Tiananmen Square, which has long been ringed with security checks requiring those entering to show identification.
People passing by on foot or bicycle on Changan Avenue running north of the square were also stopped and forced to show identification.
Those with journalist visas in their passports were told they needed special permission to even approach the area.
Still, throngs of tourists were seen visiting the iconic site, with hundreds standing in line to enter the square.
Ahead of the anniversary, a group of mothers who lost their children in the Tiananmen crackdown sought redress and issued a statement renewing their call for "truth, compensation and accountability".
Human Rights Watch called on the Chinese government to acknowledge responsibility for the killing of pro-democracy protesters.
"The Chinese government continues to evade accountability for the decades-old Tiananmen Massacre, which has emboldened its arbitrary detention of millions, its severe censorship and surveillance, and its efforts to undermine rights internationally," Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Hong Kong arrests
Among those detained in Hong Kong were opposition leader Chan Po-ying and 67-year-old Alexandra Wong, an activist known as Grandma Wong.
Both were carrying flowers near Victoria Park.
The large public space with its lawns and sports grounds used to be the scene of an annual candlelight gathering to remember the hundreds or thousands killed when army tanks and infantry descended on central Beijing on the night of June 3 and into the morning of June 4, 1989.
Mak Yin Ting, former head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, was also detained and subsequently released.
Discussion of the seven weeks of student-led protests that attracted workers and artists has long been suppressed in China.
It has also become increasingly off-limits in Hong Kong since a sweeping national security law was imposed in June 2020, effectively barring anyone from holding memorial events.
The death toll from the 1989 violence remains unknown and the Communist Party relentlessly harasses those at home or overseas who seek to keep the memory of the events alive.
While Hong Kong, a former British colony handed over to Chinese rule in 1997, uses colonial-era anti-sedition laws to crack down on dissent, the persistence of non-conforming voices "lays bare the futility of the authorities' attempts to enforce silence and obedience", according to Amnesty International.
"The Hong Kong government's shameful campaign to stop people marking this anniversary mirrors the censorship of the Chinese central government and is an insult to those killed in the Tiananmen crackdown," Amnesty said.
Beijing-appointed authorities in Hong Kong have blocked the Tiananmen memorial for the past three years, citing public health grounds.
In 2020, thousands defied a police ban to hold the event.
Commemoration muted under national security law
Despite the lifting of most COVID-19 restrictions, the city's public commemoration this year was muted under the Beijing-imposed national security law that has seen many Hong Kong activists prosecuted or silenced.
Three leaders of the group that used to organise the vigil have been charged with subversion under the law.
The group itself was disbanded in 2021, after police informed it that it was under investigation for working on behalf of foreign groups, an accusation the group denied.
After the enactment of the security law following massive protests in 2019, Tiananmen-related visual spectacles, including statues at universities, were also removed.
Most recently, books featuring the events have been pulled off public library shelves.
Asked whether it is legal to mourn the crackdown in public as an individual, Hong Kong leader John Lee said if anyone broke the law, "of course the police will have to take action".
Many Hong Kongers, who were unclear what authorities might consider subversive, tried to mark the event in low-profile ways on Sunday.
At Victoria Park, scenes of people rallying for democracy have been replaced by a carnival organised by pro-Beijing groups to mark the city's 1997 handover to China.
Vigil held in Taiwan
More than 500 people attended a commemoration event in Taipei, the capital of the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
Activists prepared a memorial at Taipei's Liberty Square, by the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, one of Taiwan's most famous landmarks, with flowers, candlelight vigil and a "Pillar of Shame" statue.
Kacey Wong, an artist who is among the scores of Hong Kong residents who have moved to the island, said the more than 30 years of commemorating the 1989 protests had made it a part of life.
Ms Wong said an artist friend, Sanmu Chen, had been detained along with others while attempting to stage a public street performance in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong.
"So it's all ingrained in our subconscious that we should care and practice our sympathy towards other people who are yearning for democracy and freedom," Ms Wong said.
Democratically governed, Taiwan is the only part of the Chinese-speaking world where the anniversary can be marked freely and openly.
ABC/wires
