Candlelight vigil

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Beijing massacre. A candlelight vigil will be held tonight in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, the only city in China which allows demonstrations to commemorate the killings of peaceful student activists asking for a democratic political system in the Communist country. Organisers have expected a high turnout, probably hitting 70,000, or 1/100 out of 7 million people residing in the tiny city in Southern China. The Chinese Communist party has defended the Tiananmen crackdown as necessary to maintain stability, and it has resisted calls to reassess its decision to send in troops. It has formally acknowledged errors before, including Mao Zedong's destructive 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, but the Washington Post said Tiananmen is particularly sensitive because a reversal could prompt fresh demands for democratic reform. Tonight, Victoria Park in Wanchai will see waving candles and people chanting patriotic songs. Adults will bring their kids, university students will go in groups, tourists will open their eyes with their maps in hand. Tomorrow, local and international newspapers will print the pictures, so familiar that as if it had become a ritual, of the event happening every year in Hong Kong, to remind our genearation and the next that something has happened in our own country. Note: Hong Kong's population is mostly homogenous. 95% of the population is ethnic Chinese. In 1989, 1 million people took to the streets to support the students going on hunger strike in Beijing.