Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Some members of Canada's Chinese diaspora are feeling the pressure to carry the torch as Hong Kong's renowned vigil commemorating the June 4, 1989, massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square falls silent.
Sunday marks the 34th anniversary of China's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, in which tanks rolled into the heart of Beijing and hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people were killed.
Hong Kong's Victoria Park had for decades been the only place on Chinese soil where large numbers gathered annually to commemorate those killed.
But on Sunday, Victoria Park will instead be occupied by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups to celebrate Hong Kong's handover to Chinese rule in 1997.
The Hong Kong vigil organizers' vote to disband in 2021 -- spurred by enforcement of the Chinese government's law that suppresses public displays of opposition -- has driven many overseas Chinese communities to step up their own efforts, including here in Canada.
Mabel Tung, chairwoman of the society hosting the Vancouver vigil at David Lam Park on Sunday, said organizers started putting together the event a month early because activists feel the added responsibility of carrying on the work of the Hong Kong vigil.
"This year we started in March to plan ahead and work with other organizations across Canada in Toronto and also Calgary ... so those who went to Victoria Park every year have a sense that we still remember the massacre and the people of Hong Kong," Tung said.
The location of David Lam Park, an urban, waterfront park similar to Victoria Park, was chosen in part to echo the spirit of the Hong Kong protests.
For some members of the diaspora, the June 4 vigil has taken on new significance due to China's national security law crackdown in Hong Kong since 2020, where Tiananmen-related statues have been removed from universities and books about the event have been pulled off public library shelves.
Winnie Ng, co-chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, said Sunday's vigil and its message may be more relevant than ever, given Hong Kong's slide into authoritarianism, as well as recent controversies about possible Chinese interference in Canadian politics and intimidation of overseas dissidents.
"In a way, Hong Kong has now become a police state right before our eyes," Ng said. "The very fabric of a civil society, a proud tradition of a rule-of-law system has now been decimated," Ng said.
"So, we this year feel it's important to express both our outrage, as well as recommit ourselves to saying the lights in Victoria Park may have been dimmed, but the light of human rights, justice, freedom and democracy will continue all over the world."
Last year, Ng said the organizers began seeing people who had left Hong Kong and resettled in Canada attending the vigil in large numbers. There were also some members of the mainland Chinese community decrying China's rigid zero-COVID policies during the pandemic.
The Toronto vigil will be held Sunday in Mel Lastman Square.
With protests and memorial gatherings effectively quashed in Hong Kong, residents there will have to commemorate June 4 privately. But large gatherings are planned in other cities around the world this weekend, including New York, London and Taipei.
Vancouver activist Thekla Lit, president of the British Columbia Association for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia, recently visited Taipei and said the responsibility to increase awareness of the June 4 event felt by the diaspora in Canada is echoed in other major cities with large overseas Chinese communities.
"I would say that what happened on June 4, 1989, even though it happened 34 years ago, it's actually living history," Lit said. "So, we have to learn from this history that we have to be very vigilant and defend ourselves, our own democratic freedoms from these regimes."
The key, Ng said, is to keep the memories of events like June 4 alive so the next generation will not forget what has happened, even if they did not live through the protests firsthand.
"I might not see the outcome that we desire in my lifetime," Ng said. "But I think it's important for all of us to take that responsibility, because what we're doing is not just saying what's wrong with China and elsewhere, but also saying, as Canadians, how do we use our voice to safeguard our democratic system within Canada?"
With files from The Associated Press. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2023.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.