Group behind Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil denies foreign ties

The group behind the annual Tiananmen Square memorial vigil in Hong Kong on Sunday said that it will not cooperate with police conducting a national security investigation into the group’s activities, as they termed it as an abuse of power.

The police notified the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China last month that it was under investigation for working for foreign interests, an accusation that it had denied.

Chow Han Tung, vice chairwoman of the alliance, at a news conference said, "This is a really bad precedent of the national security (police) abusing the power by arbitrarily labelling any civil organisation as a foreign agent".

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“The alliance strongly denies that we are any foreign agents,” Chow said. “We are an organisation that was founded during the 1989 democratic movement, it was founded by the Hong Kong people.”

The investigation comes as a part of a broad crackdown on Hong Kong civil society following mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Authorities have tightened control over the city with a sweeping national security law imposed by China’s ruling Communist Party that effectively criminalised opposition to the government.

The law and other changes have forced several civil organisations to disband or seen their leaders arrested.