HONG KONG: Twenty-four activists appeared in a Hong Kong court on Friday on charges related to a June 4 vigil last year marking the anniversary of China’s military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Hong Kong traditionally holds the largest vigil in the world every year, although it was banned in 2020, with authorities giving the risk of spreading the coronavirus as the reason. The vigils have always been banned in mainland China.
But thousands of Hong Kong people defied the ban and took to the streets to stage candlelight rallies in the former British colony which was promised wide-ranging freedoms when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997, including rights of expression and assembly.
Released from jail to attend the court hearing were media tycoon and staunch Beijing critic Jimmy Lai, 73, and prominent democracy activist Joshua Wong, 24.
Lai is being held pending a bail hearing after he became the city’s most high-profile…