Refuse to Forget, Refuse to Fall Silent
- Event
- 37th Anniversary of June Fourth — Tokyo Memorial Gathering
- Host
- Tiananmen Memorial Executive Committee (LLHK a co-organizer)
- Location
- Scott Hall, Waseda Hoshien, Tokyo
- Date
- 3 June 2026
English translation of opening remarks delivered in Japanese by Alric Lee, Executive Director of Lady Liberty Hong Kong, at the 37th-anniversary Tiananmen memorial gathering — Scott Hall, Waseda Hoshien, Tokyo, 3 June 2026. One of fifteen speakers that evening; only these remarks are reproduced here.
Good evening, everyone. It rained all day today. As I look at your faces now, the memory of one particular night comes back to me.
June 4, 2013, in Victoria Park. That night, too, it poured. And still more than 150,000 people gathered. Each time a candle went out, we passed the flame from the person beside us. Thank you, truly, for making your way here tonight through the rain.
We have called this gathering a "memorial." But there is one thing I want to say to you honestly: this is not an evening for growing nostalgic about the past. What began in 1989 is still going on.
In Hong Kong, even in this past week, people are being put on trial for nothing more than having spoken the truth about the Tiananmen massacre. The former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China — Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan, and Albert Ho — have been held for more than 1,700 days on a charge of "inciting subversion of state power." The verdict is expected in the middle of this month.
And there is one more thing I want to tell you tonight. One of those three, Chow Hang-tung, is right now on hunger strike in prison. Even in this very moment, as we gather in this hall, she is refusing food — still raising her voice from inside her cell.
If I had to sum up in a single line the words Chow Hang-tung has kept writing all this time, it would be this:
"What the regime fears most is that people refuse to forget."
And tonight, seeing her as she is now, I feel I must add one more thing to that: the refusal to forget — and the refusal to fall silent.
With us in this hall tonight is Wuer Kaixi, who has come from Taiwan. In 1989, he was one of those whose life was saved by the people of Hong Kong. That was thirty-seven years ago. That Wuer Kaixi can stand here in Tokyo tonight and speak before us — that fact itself may be an answer to the question of what Hong Kong has truly been working for, and why, across these thirty years.
In 2013, the candles in Victoria Park did not go out, even in that downpour. Our fight is not over. And it is not only a special monument that keeps memory alive: memory lives in our continuing, every single day, to speak true words. That light is inside each and every one of you here. I have gone on too long. Thank you — and I look forward to being with you tonight.