HONG KONG (AP) — A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city’s shrinking freedom of expression. Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that had for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years. Chen said his thread was 6.4 meters (about 21 feet) long — an apparent reference to the June 4 crackdown date.
Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go. When asked by a reporter about his gesture with the red thread after his release, Chen said it was meant to express his condolences for those who died.“It’s abnormal when people monitor you when you are saying or doing something,” he told reporters.
