At first the government churned out propaganda that labeled those protests as a counterrevolutionary rebellion that had to be suppressed. Then, state-induced amnesia was imposed gradually. It’s the same playbook China used after violently crushing the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing. Revisionism - with its ancillary altering or obliteration of memory - is an act of repression. But authorities aren’t merely choking off future protest they are attempting to rewrite Hong Kong’s history. It was just one example of how Hong Kong, a global, tech-savvy city whose protests were once livestreamed around the world, is being transformed. One participant said the protesters, who were opposed to a land reclamation project, were “ herded like sheep.” This odd spectacle last month was Hong Kong’s first authorized protest in three years - highly choreographed, surveilled and regulated, even though it was not an explicitly antigovernment demonstration, and a world away from the crowds that thronged streets in 2019 to protest China’s tightening grip on the city. The group of about 80 protesters wore numbered lanyards around their necks and cordoned themselves off with tape as they marched, like a crime scene in motion.
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