Lawmaker Au Kam San will not file a judicial appeal against the government’s decision to ban a controversial photo exhibition from being held in Senado Square. The veteran democrat told the Times that the lengthy judicial procedures would not be completed in time to stage the exhibition, which was scheduled for June 4, the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident.
Held every year alongside the main candlelight vigil, the exhibition serves to document the events of the summer of 1989 when student-led demonstrators calling for political reform in China were forcibly suppressed by the government.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) is responsible for the decision to ban the exhibition, citing social distancing guidelines which have been in place during the Covid-19 pandemic. As the exhibition location in central Senado Square is frequented by both locals and tourists, the photo exhibition regularly draws a large crowd.
With its permission suddenly revoked, lawmaker Au said that the photo exhibition would not be held this year unless an alternative location could be arranged at short notice.
Meanwhile, the democrat lawmaker is today expected to submit the notification of public assembly for the vigil itself to the Public Security Police Force. The power to refuse public assemblies was recently transferred from the IAM to the police authority.
Pro-democracy associations in Macau have described the IAM’s decision as being politically motivated. They say that the government is using Covid-19 infection prevention measures as an excuse to prevent the exhibition from being held. Some worry that these justifications will be extended to the vigil.
One of the most vocal pro-democracy groups in the city, the New Macau Association, said it was “shocked” by the decision, which “is obviously based on political reasons.”
“[The IAM] is using administrative means to suppress freedom of expression and to minimize space for civil society,” the New Macau Association said in a statement released on Tuesday. It also accused the bureau of working to cover “the historical crimes of the bloody suppression of the regime at that time.”
As the Times has reported in previous years, mainland visitors are often seen stopping at the exhibition boards to study them. Local residents interviewed near the exhibition say they are not familiar with the Tiananmen Square protests, even though similar demonstrations were held in Macau that same summer.
According to democrat lawmaker Sulu Sou, this historical event is deliberately omitted from the education authority’s standardized textbooks and is rarely taught in schools. Daniel Beitler, Anthony Lam
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