Student leaders at a Hong Kong university have been branded ¡°cold-blooded¡± for calling for an end to commemorations of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

On the 28th?anniversary of the pro-democracy protests in Beijing, the Chinese University of Hong Kong¡¯s student union issued a statement saying the time to publicly remember the 1989 event had come to an end, the reported on 5 June.

It came as Hong Kong¡¯s Victoria Park was lit up by a sea of candles on 4 June ¨C the only large-scale commemoration of the crackdown on the student-led protests, which left hundreds dead, held on Chinese soil.

The student union also accused the vigil¡¯s organiser, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, of turning the event into a ritual and ¡°making use of the public¡¯s moral sentiment to build up its political capital¡±, the Post said.

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Alumni and students from the Chinese university said their union was ¡°ignorant¡±, ¡°cold-blooded¡± and ¡°lazy¡± to issue the statement, but the union stood by its comments.

¡°I don¡¯t feel I am cold-blooded,¡± union president Au Tze-ho told a Commercial Radio programme on 5 June, adding ¡°there was no need to organise an event for collective mourning¡±.

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While he recognised that 4 June was a ¡°very important event for Hong Kong¡± and he had ¡°no problem with you mourning the deaths personally¡±, the union felt it had to ¡°take issue with the format of the commemoration¡±.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com