Police arrest 4, detain 5 on June 4 anniversary

Hong Kong police said they arrested four people and detained five others on Tuesday – the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

Near Victoria Park, the previous site of the yearly vigils, hundreds of police conducted stop and search operations, and deployed armored vehicles to patrol the vicinity.

Police said as of 11.30 pm yesterday, four people aged 23 to 69 were arrested. Among the arrestees was activist Alexandra Wong, 68, who chanted the slogan “vindication of June 4”, an elderly woman accompanied by a man who held a book about the city’s national security law, and another man who wore an Ernesto “Che” Guevara t-shirt.

Wong was arrested for violating Hong Kong’s new security law, known as Article 23, while the others were arrested for offenses including assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct in a public place, and assault.

Meanwhile, three men and two women, aged 27 to 88, were taken away by police officers for “breaching public peace”. They were brought back to a police station and later released.