Tiananmen 20th Anniversary, actsnsw, Amnesty International Australia

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Tiananmen 20th Anniversary

Published on 9/06/2009

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Bede Carmody - Community Campaigner

It is quite fitting that tonight we mark the 20th anniversary of crackdown in Tiananmen Square here at ANU. The events of Tiananmen Square in June 1989 were the culmination of country-wide protests which started two months earlier when a group of students gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of a senior Communist Party official, Hu Yaobang, who was known for his support for political and economic reform in China. The students’ were calling for an end to official corruption and for political and economic reforms. During the next two months millions joined them or organised peaceful demonstrations throughout China. The pro-democracy movement attracted so much support that the authorities declared martial law on May20.

On June 4, heavily armed troops and hundreds of armoured vehicles moved into the city to clear the pro-democracy demonstrators. The troops fired randomly at protesters and onlookers and hundreds of unarmed civilians were shot. In some cases tanks crushed those that could not get away.

The Chinese authorities have consistently failed to bring those responsible for these serious human rights violations to justice and have suppressed attempts to mark the anniversary of the crackdown. Public debate and discussion of the event is banned, and those seeking justice for the victims and their families have suffered police harassment, arbitrary detention and sometimes imprisonment.

Despite international appeals, the Chinese government has refused to hold a public inquiry into the events of 4 June 1989.

An official report issued by the Chinese authorities at the end of June 1989 claimed that ‘more than 3000 civilians were wounded and more than 200 died during the riot’. While the exact figures are unknown, Amnesty International believes that many more were killed in Beijing during the military intervention and tens of thousands arrested in the aftermath throughout China.

Many of those detained were tortured or otherwise ill-treated by the authorities and some continued to be tortured long after they had been imprisoned, often with devastating long term effects on their physical and mental health. Some were executed a few days after being sentenced to death for their involvement in the protests.

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Students, Amnesty Volunteers and Activists showing their support at The Australian National University. From L-R Hannah Lewis, Ji-Shen Loong and Johanna Castles

Many others were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment after unfair trials.

Tonight we gather to remember those who lost their lives, as well as in solidarity with those who will not let the Chinese forget. The Tiananmen Mothers are a network of human rights defenders – mainly women – whose children and other close relatives were killed or injured in the June 1989 crackdown.

The Tiananmen Mothers regularly submit appeals and petitions calling on the Chinese authorities:

• to allow victims’ families the right to mourn in public • to end the persecution of victims and their families • to release all those still imprisoned for taking part in peaceful protests, and • to implement a full and open inquiry into events of 3-4 June 1989.

Subsequently they have been subjected to harassment, discrimination and arbitrary detention over the years.

This year Amnesty International has repeated its call for the Chinese authorities to hold an open and independent inquiry in the 1989 crackdown. Years after the Tiananmen Square crackdown, an anonymous Chinese student who participated in the 1989 demonstrations posted a message on the internet explaining her ritual of gathering a bouquet of six white and four red roses each year to mark the anniversary of the crackdown.

She wrote of her hope that one day she would be able place such a bouquet in Tiananmen Square to publicly commemorate the victims without risking reprisals from the authorities.

The six white roses represent the sixth month of the year (June) and symbolise purity of heart. The four red roses represent the fourth day of the month and symbolise the passion of the protesters’ beliefs.

Together the roses are now seen as a symbol of the calls for justice for the victims of the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

I remember watching the events of Tiananmen Square unfold before my eyes on the television screen. At the time I was a university student myself and found it hard to comprehend that my contemporaries across the world were being treated in such a brutal manner for asking for things which I took for granted.

Please join with me now for a few quite moments to reflect on the 1989 event in Tiananmen Square.