By DPA,
Hong Kong : All money from the annual candlelight vigil in Hong Kong next week marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square massace will go to China’s earthquake victims, organisers said Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of people gather in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park every June 4 to remember the students killed by Chinese soldiers in the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing.
The event raises around 700,000 Hong Kong dollars ($89,688) and organiser Cheung Man-kwong said this year all money would go to the survivors of the Sichuan earthquake.
Cheung said the rally provided 80 percent of the annual funding for the Patriotic Democratic Movement of China, which organises the rallies, but said the group decided nevertheless to give the money to the quake relief effort.
“We decided to donate all the money from the June 4 rally to show our concern for the people of Sichuan,” he said.
The candlelight vigil in Hong Kong is the only public memorial on Chinese soil to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre and is a cause of aggravation for China’s leaders.
Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 after 156 years of British rule under a ‘one country, two systems’ arrangement that guarantees freedom of speech and expression.