'Day students shed blood'

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in a rain-soaked Hong Kong park yesterday for a candlelight vigil at which they urged China to respect human rights.

It was the 24th anniversary of the 1989 fatal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

In China, mention of the anniversary was censored from the internet.

Security was tight in Beijing, where, on June 3 and June 4 1989, China's leaders ordered troops to open fire on demonstrators and sent in tanks to crush a months-long, student-led, pro-democracy movement.

Hundreds of activists were killed.

In Hong Kong, vigil participants wore black to commemorate the dead and held candles under umbrellas, though many left after a heavy downpour.

Protesters demanded that Beijing retract its denunciation of the pro-democracy movement as a "counter-revolutionary event".

Hong Kong was a British colony, leased from China, and was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

It is the only place on Chinese soil where large, open commemorations of the Tiananmen massacre are held annually.

The vigil is also held up as a symbol of Hong Kong's relative freedom and civil liberties compared with mainland China.

Organisers expected a large turnout that would send a "united message" to China's new president, Xi Jinping, whose government has clamped down on internet freedom and detained anti-corruption activists.

A record 180000 people attended last year's vigil.

Xi became Communist Party chief in November and president in March at a time of mounting public pressure for long-stalled political reform. There has been no sign of reform so far.

China grapples with thousands of protests every year over everything from pollution to corruption and illegal land grabs.

But the demonstrations have not come close to becoming a national movement that could threaten the party's monopoly on power.

In Beijing, Tiananmen Square was packed with tourists on a cool, smoggy day. Plain-clothes security men and police were out in force, checking the identity cards of Chinese tourists.

"It's June 4, a day the Communist Party and the Chinese government don't like," said a young woman from the southern city of Shenzhen, who would not give her name. "Older people who remember [the day] told us about it. It's called 'the day students shed blood'."

The government last week began detaining dissidents and cutting phone and internet access.

"If the government is sensible, next year [it] could designate a spot where we could march," said Zhang Xianling, 76.

Zhang is one of a group of "Tiananmen mothers" who seek justice for children killed in the crackdown. They were closely watched by the police as they paid their respects to Tiananmen victims in Beijing's Wan'an cemetery.