Discussion of the June 4, 1989 crackdown is highly sensitive to China's communist leadership, and commemoration of the hundreds killed -- by some estimates, more than 1,000 -- has long been forbidden in the mainland.
For decades, Hong Kong was the only Chinese city with large-scale public commemoration of the bloody incident, but the annual vigil has been banned following the imposition of a national security law on the city in 2020.
On a busy street in the commercial district of Causeway Bay on Saturday, artist Sanmu Chen repeatedly chanted "Don't forget June 4! Hong Kong people, don't be afraid of them!"
An officer shouted at him to "stop doing seditious acts" before authorities bundled him into a police bus.
Another well-known performance artist Chan Mei-tung was also taken away.
Chan was standing and wandering around the bustling area before she was stopped and searched by police, AFP reporters witnessed.
She had been detained the year before on the anniversary's eve. Her offending piece last year was whittling a potato into the shape of a candle and holding a lighter to it.
Thousands of candles would be distributed at the now-banned annual Tiananmen vigil.
Police on Saturday also detained a young couple holding white chrysanthemums -- a flower typically used to signify loss and mourning.
When asked if they were being arrested, the flower-wielding man said "I have no idea" as he was taken away.
Local media also reported that two other well-known activists -- Lau Ka-yee and Kwan Chun-pong -- were removed from Victoria Park by police.
Photos published showed that the activists had covered their mouths with red tape while holding a piece of paper.
It read that they were fasting "in mourning for the deceased and victims of 64 (June 4) in respect for Tiananmen Mothers".
Hong Kong police have not responded to requests from AFP for information about the Saturday detentions.
- Banned vigil -
Chinese troops and tanks broke up peaceful protests in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, brutally crushing a weeks-long wave of demonstrations calling for political change.
For decades, the annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park drew tens of thousands until its ban in 2020.
The vigil's organiser, Hong Kong Alliance, and its leaders were charged with "incitement to subversion" under the security law, which was imposed to quell the massive and often violent pro-democracy protests that shook the city in 2019.
Victoria Park -- which was blocked with metal barriers for the past three years -- had a "hometown fair" launched Saturday by pro-Beijing groups to promote products from the mainland. It will run until Monday.
Leading up to Sunday's anniversary, officials repeatedly refused to confirm if public mourning of the event was illegal, only saying that "everyone should act in accordance with the law".
China censors protest site's location ahead of Tiananmen anniversary
Beijing (AFP) June 3, 2023 -
Chinese police beefed up their presence Saturday at the bridge where a rare protest was staged last year, with authorities censoring online map searches for the site and even removing a road sign on the eve of the Tiananmen crackdown anniversary.
In October, days before China's ruling party was set to hold congress, a protester had draped banners with slogans criticising the Communist Party's Covid policies on the side of Beijing's Sitong bridge.
On Saturday, searches for "Sitong bridge" in Simplified Chinese -- used in mainland China -- led to a message saying "no results found" on map apps Baidu, Amap and Tencent maps.
AFP reporters saw at least four police cars parked on each corner of the bridge Saturday, and that a sign with the name of the bridge had been taken down.
The move comes a day before the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, where on June 4, 1989, tanks and heavily armed troops cleared a demonstration at Beijing's Tiananmen Square by students demanding democracy and greater freedoms.
Hundreds, by some estimates more than 1,000, were killed in the crackdown.
Details of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests have been wiped from history books in China, and censors routinely block websites or social media accounts ahead of the event's anniversary.
Last year, a live stream by popular influencer Li Jiaqi was cut-off after he showed his audience a layered ice cream, garnished with Oreo cookies on its sides and what appeared to be a chocolate ball and a chocolate stick on top, resembling the shape of a tank, a day before the June 4 anniversary.
In Hong Kong, Tiananmen commemorations have almost disappeared after Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 to quash dissent in the city.
Baidu, the operator of China's biggest search engine, did not reply to AFP inquiries about when or why searches for the bridge were blocked.
Tech giant Tencent also declined to respond to similar queries.
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