Tens of thousands of people joined a candlelit vigil in Hong Kong to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
Demonstrators, many holding up candles and placards, gathered in the financial hub’s Victoria Park on Tuesday night to mark 30 years since Chinese troops opened fire on student-led democracy protesters.
Protesters rallied next to a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue which was erected in the square during the demonstrations three decades ago.
Hong Kong and Macau are the only places in Chinese territory where people can commemorate the activists killed in 1989.
Tiananmen Square massacre 30th anniversary vigil - in pictures
Organisers said 180,000 people joined a vigil in Victoria Park, filling six football fields, but police authorities put the turnout at 37,000.
Authorities in mainland China, where the anniversary remains taboo, deployed a security blanket in and around Tiananmen Square.
China has never provided a death toll for the 1989 violence. Rights groups and witnesses have said it could run into the thousands
"It is very important that Hong Kong people continue to remember the June 4 tragedy, and indeed, preserve the memory," said Richard Tsoi, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
"And don't let the Chinese authority try to erase the memory for the whole nation."
Others chanted: "End one-party dictatorship" and "build a democratic China."
Veteran Hong Kong democracy campaigner and Baptist cleric Chu Yiu-ming who was in his mid-40s when he joined demonstrators around Tiananmen Square in 1989, just before the bloody crackdown, was overcome with emotion.
"I swear, as long as someone suffers and is humiliated, I have to voice it," he said.
Agencies contributed to this report
