Journey of Peace - Attending the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony and Commemorating the 37th Anniversary of Tiananmen Bloodshed Crackdown
No incitement. No need to incite. We just state the facts and continue our demands voluntarily.
Patrick Poon
May 18, 2026
I’m writing this record 16 years after attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony that Dr. Liu Xiaobo was still alive and the organizers arranged an empty seat to honour him, which became his symbol - who was persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party until he died in custody. I later worked for Amnesty International. I wrote a commentary on Foreign Policy’s website about Liu Xiaobo’s wife Liu Xia fleeing from China to Germany. Later, due to all the daily hassles and moving to the United Kingdom, Belgium and Japan, I could not finish my PhD thesis that I have been writing for many years. I changed several jobs. Then, I was seriously ill and have been slowly recovering. As the commemoration of June 4 was approaching, I recalled a lot of memories. While writing this speech, I watched the 88-years-old Tiananmen Mothers’ spokesperson Zhang Xianling’s video to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen Crackdown, I felt that I should record this. Despite all the changes in life, I should not forget about all these. All the memories of the June 4 candlelight vigils at Victoria Park have become part of my life.
After attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, I returned to Hong Kong to continue my work on human rights in China. I continued to take part in the annual candlelight vigil at Victoria Park. I could have never imagined that the candlelight vigil would be forcibly terminated by the regime. The tyranny violently snatched our freedom of assembly to take part in the candlelight vigil. The organizers, Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were unreasonably cracked down by the government. Lee Cheuk-yan, the Alliance’s chairperson, barrister Chow Hang-tung and solicitor Albert Ho Chun-yan, the Alliance’s vice chairpersons, were detained. The government claimed that they “incited” the public. Like the imprisonment of the people based on their words in mainland China, how could the demand for vindication of June 4 crackdown and that for ending the one-party rule be considered inciting others? Who was incited? We voluntarily went to Victoria Park to take part in the assembly and voluntarily chanted the slogans of “ending the one-party totalitarian rule” and “shame on the June 4 bloodshed crackdown”. How would we need to be “incited”? We heartfeltly called for ending the one-party authoritarian rule. We strongly rebuked the Chinese government’s shameless bloodshed on June 4, 1989. We can no longer chant these slogans in Hong Kong. We continue to adamantly chant the slogan of “ending one-party rule”.
How shameless it is for a regime to always groundlessly accuse citizens of “incitement”. No matter how self-sufficient the regime is to believe that it is wealthy and powerful, it cannot conceal the madness and ruthlessness of tyranny. Some people might say that it is useless to continue to chant slogans. I don’t really care if that is useful or not. I have freedom of expression. I could continue to chant the slogan and expose the evil deeds of the Communist regime. No matter how the tyranny wants to distort history and attempts to erase history. As long as we have words, we can record history. We can write. We should not let tyranny feel informidable. Today, we come together here in Waseda, Tokyo, to continue commemorating June 4. We continue to unshakably chant the slogan to end one-party rule and demand vindication of the June 4 crackdown. It’s shameless for the Chinese government to crack down on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and attempt to wipe out the history of the bloodshed crackdown. Not only in Japan, Hong Kongers and Chinese in every part of the world would continue to rebuke the evil deeds of the Communist Chinese regime. We don’t need to be incited and we don’t incite others.