Democrat-bashers have ridiculed it as an annual political show by the usual suspects in the Legislative Council. Some ordinary people, understandably, see the Legco debate on the June 4 crackdown as futile, and view it with indifference.
If it were not the 20th anniversary of the 1989 protests this year, the media would not have given such considerable coverage to the motion debate last Wednesday.
Like the previous 10 debates of its kind, last week's motion - calling on people not to forget the June 4 incident and to vindicate the pro-democracy movement - was voted down.
Several amendments moved by pan-democrats - demanding the inclusion of the incident in school history books and expressing regret about recent remarks on the issue by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen - suffered the same fate.
As expected, no government officials attended the debate. Members of the major pro-establishment political party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, did not speak on the motion before casting their opposing vote.
Thus, it is no wonder that a vote in favour of the motion, by medical representative Leung Ka-lau, who is not affiliated with the pan-democratic camp, was hailed as a 'mini-breakthrough' by some democrats.
The fact that non-affiliated lawmaker Paul Chan Mo-po (accountancy) joined the democrats in observing a minute's silence during the debate was also described as a ground-breaking feat in the otherwise set-piece event.
