UK band Pet Shop Boys had Hong Kong in their hearts on June 4, as intensifying government crackdowns kept the city from commemorating the anniversary of the tragedy at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square 32 years ago.
The synth-pop duo posted a picture of activist Chow Hang-tung, who was arrested the morning of the anniversary for allegedly publicizing a banned assembly.
“On this sad anniversary, we’re thinking about our friends in China and Hong Kong. Love, Neil & Chris x,” Pet Shop Boys wrote on social media.
On this sad anniversary, we’re thinking about our friends in China and Hong Kong. Love, Neil & Chris xhttps://t.co/iBMcpWlUWP#PetText pic.twitter.com/K1jAD4OTiN
— Pet Shop Boys (@petshopboys) June 4, 2021
Chow is the vice-chair of Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the organizing group behind the vigils.
Friday marked the first June 4 anniversary since the government passed a sweeping national security law, which broadly criminalizes offences deemed as constituting secession and subversion.
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The annual vigil at Victoria Park, traditionally attended by mourners in the tens of thousands, was also banned last year ostensibly due to COVID-19 restrictions.
On social media, Hongkongers expressed gratitude to the British band for speaking up for the city’s pro-democracy movement. “Didn’t think I could love you more. Thank you,” one Twitter user wrote.
Based half a world away in London, Pet Shop Boys has a relationship with Hong Kong’s political movement that stretches back decades, starting from when the band played in the city in the summer of 1989—three weeks after the June 4 incident.
When the duo returned to Hong Kong in 2014, it was the evening that the Occupy Central protests began.
In their EP “Agenda,” released in February 2019, Pet Shop Boys name-checks the city in a song decrying capitalism: “They say democracy is simply very bad for business,” the duo sings, “While deploring student protests in the middle of Hong Kong.”
