The Truth About Tiananmen

In countries around the world, people will recall the searing drama that unfolded 15 years ago today in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing after a divided Chinese Communist leadership ordered in army tanks to crush a peaceful student-led democracy movement. People will recall it in China, too. But there, public commemoration is strictly forbidden, accurate information is legally secret, and an honest official assessment of Tiananmen's true significance is not in sight. 

After 15 years, China's leaders still pretend that the Tiananmen movement was a violent counterrevolutionary rebellion that endangered China's security and its future. By not acknowledging that the brutal suppression was a tragic mistake, China keeps Tiananmen an unhealed wound. For the generation that lived through it, and especially for those whose lives and families were abruptly torn apart, there can be no moving on until that wound is recognized. For others, the Tiananmen taboo feeds the suspicion that China's rulers will always put preserving their own power ahead of the truth and the interests of ordinary people. 

Tiananmen irrevocably changed the relationship between China's people and its rulers. Although the immediate sequel was repression and reaction, that change has worked out mainly for the better over time. It is now possible to recognize China's Tiananmen spring as part of the global political upheaval of 1989 that wrote Communism's epitaph. That fall, similar youthful and idealistic movements helped end Communist rule across Eastern and Central Europe. In China, Communist power survived, but Communist ideology crumbled. 

China began experimenting with market reforms long before 1989. The man who started those reforms, Deng Xiaoping, was also the man who authorized the Tiananmen crackdown. Deng the economic maverick was also Deng the rigid Leninist. Yet the archaic structures of power and belief that Mr. Deng shed so much blood to preserve soon began turning into something he neither foresaw nor approved of: an evolving 21st-century mix of capitalism, authoritarianism and pragmatism.

In today's China, breakneck economic growth has transformed living standards, especially in the thriving south and east. Many people enjoy undreamed of personal freedoms ‹ but not those who speak up politically, join unofficial labor movements or practice unsanctioned religions. A new, better educated and potentially more enlightened Communist Party leadership has largely displaced the old men responsible for the Tiananmen tragedy.

It is time for it to honor the idealism and courage of so many Chinese citizens and tell the true story of that terrible night. 

  The three were arbitrarily detained in an apparent attempt to stop them or warn them against commemorating the 15th anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy protests.

The detention of the three "Tiananmen Mothers" comes a few days before the Chinese government's release on 30 March of a white paper on human rights in China for the year 2003 claiming that China had made "landmark progress" in protecting human rights and two weeks before the European Union (EU) is due to discuss lifting the arms embargo on China put in place immediately after 4 June 1989.

In Amnesty International's view the arbitrary detention of three women closely associated with the events of 4 June 1989 is indicative that the Chinese government is still to fully address the concerns in China and abroad over the events of 4 June 1989. This is underlined by the fact that dozens of people remain in prison for participating in those protests. Reports that Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling and Huang Jinping were arbitrarily detained having recorded interviews to be shown at the on-going meeting of the Unites Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, confirms the Chinese government's continuing reluctance to address these concerns.

Amnesty International urges the Chinese government to abide by the recent constitutional amendment to "respect and protect human rights" and to release Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling and Huang Jinping. 

Fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre

The use of the term "4 June" (Liu Si) 
is still banned in the press and on the Internet

On 4 June 1989, Chinese army tanks were crushing the student revolt on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, sounding a death-knell for public democratic protest in China. Fifteen years later, the use of the term "4 June" is still banned in the press and on the Internet, and journalists and Internet users are still suffering the consequences of the censorship and repression introduced after the "Beijing Spring." 

Over the last 15 years, more than 130 journalists and Internet users have been jailed, of whom 43 directly participated in "Beijing Spring." Among them, three are still behind bars : Yu Dongyue, an art critic with News of Liuyang, who was arrested on 23 May 1989 and sentenced to 20 years in prison ; Chen Yanbin, co-editor of the underground magazine Tielu, arrested in 1990 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Liu Jingsheng, a journalist with the underground magazine Tansuo, arrested on 28 May 1992 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. 

In addition, Internet webmaster Huang Qi has been in jail since 3 June 2000 for having allowed articles about the Tiananmen Square massacre to be posted on his website, which was hosted in the United States after being initially banned in China. He received a five-year prison term for "subversion" and "inciting the overthrow of state power." 

Chinese authorities recently put several human rights activists under house arrest, thereby preventing them from publicly commemorating the 15th anniversary of the bloody crackdown against the Tiananmen Square demonstrators. Among them was Liu Xiaobo, an ardent defender of freedom of expression and author of numerous articles on cyber-dissidence in China. Moreover, Dr. Jiang Yanyong, the military hospital doctor known for exposing the severity of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, was "exiled" to Xinjiang province for asking government officials, last March, to reconsider their position on the massacre of 4 June 1989. In his reply, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao explained that the Communist Party had merely acted to preserve the country's unity and stability. 

This year in Hong Kong, the pressure has intensified against journalists and human rights activists who are urging the public to demonstrate on the occasion of 4 June. Unidentified individuals have been tearing down the posters announcing this commemorative event. 

Even today, any journalist who dares to question the official version of the events of 4 June-the regime still considers that the Army's intervention was "appropriate"-or attempts to commemorate the "Beijing Spring," is taking a risk. 

The Internet is being subjected to the same type of censorship. In May 2003, Reporters without Borders established that the use of the term "4 June" (Liu Si) was prohibited on Chinese websites and in chat rooms. Filters set up by the authorities systematically block any messages referring to the massacre. 

Since 4 June 1989, Chinese authorities have been closely monitoring foreign correspondents, especially their relations with dissidents. In the last 10 years, more than 40 foreign journalists have been subjected to peremptory questioning for having met with activists associated with the student movement or the Chinese Democratic Party. Foreign media journalists will be under very close scrutiny as 4 June draws closer. For example, Beijing's city hall passed a new regulation in mid-April 2004 prohibiting any sort of gathering in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square. Despite the promises made by authorities before Beijing was chosen as the site for the 2008 Olympic Games, Reporters without Borders has noted no significant improvement in working conditions for foreign journalists. 

On the occasion of this 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Reporters without Borders is asking the Chinese government : 

to release the 27 journalists and 61 cyber-dissidents currently behind bars, three of whom were jailed for taking part in the 1989 democratic movement  

 

 to abolish censorship relating to the events of 4 June 1989 in the press and on the Internet  

 

 to put an end to the harassment and vexatious measures (house arrest, shadowing, wiretaps, etc.) inflicted upon journalists who participated in the "Beijing Spring"  

 

 to authorize exiled journalists and dissidents to return to China in complete safety 

 

 to allow the Chinese and international press to report on dissident group activities.

 

more information is available at http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10509 
(REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS)

By K.C. Ng and Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 5, 2004; Page A11 

HONG KONG, June 4 -- Tens of thousands of people dressed in funereal black or white gathered in a central park in Hong Kong and lit candles Friday night to mark the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and protest the Chinese government's hard line against democratic reform in this former British colony. 

The vigil was the only public commemoration of the June 4, 1989, military crackdown permitted in China. In Beijing, police thwarted several attempts to mark the anniversary, dragging away more than a dozen unidentified people from Tiananmen Square and keeping many dissidents and relatives of those slain in 1989 under surveillance or house arrest. 

The contrast between the security clampdown in the Chinese capital and an emotional, two-hour candlelight vigil here highlighted the special freedoms that the people of Hong Kong enjoy -- and the thorny challenge that their demands for greater democracy continue to pose to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. 

Police estimated that 48,000 people attended the demonstration in Victoria Park, but organizers put the figure at 82,000, the largest turnout since the event was first held in 1990 and a sharp increase over the 50,000 who participated last year. 

In previous years, the June 4 vigil focused on mourning the hundreds, perhaps thousands, killed when Chinese troops and tanks suppressed student-led, pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But this year, participants also linked the vigil to Hong Kong's own struggle for democracy. 

"China's brutal suppression of Hong Kong's democracy is like a June 4 crackdown without blood," said Bishop Joseph Zen, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong and an outspoken supporter of democratic reforms. 

Emotions have been running high since April, when Beijing rejected popular demands for direct elections in 2007 and 2008 to choose the territory's next chief executive and all its legislators. Pro-democracy activists have vowed to keep fighting and are planning a major demonstration on July 1, the anniversary of the territory's 1997 return to Chinese rule and an anti-government rally that drew 500,000 people last year. 

"We included the theme of democracy this year because without a government that is responsible to the people, the community can have no hope and no future," said Szeto Wah, a lawmaker who is a veteran of the pro-democracy movement and the vigil's chief organizer. "Democracy is also the spirit of the 1989 student movement." 

Waving candles and singing, the crowd filled an area of six soccer fields and carried signs that urged people to both "Remember June 4" and "March on July 1." Many participants wept quietly when footage of the 1989 massacre was shown on a large screen under a banner that declared, "Return Power to the People." But then the crowd began chanting "End Communist rule" and "Free the dissidents," and the roar echoed through the glitzy streets of the nearby Causeway Bay shopping district. 

The Chinese government maintains that the Tiananmen Square crackdown was necessary to ensure social stability, which in turn made possible the country's historic economic growth over the past 15 years. 

In recent months, Beijing has made it easier for mainland tourists to visit Hong Kong, part of a strategy to boost the territory's slumping economy and win over public sentiment. But pro-democracy activists passed out fliers and persuaded many tourists to attend the vigil. 

Some who did, like Xie Chunyong, 36, an office manager from southern Guizhou province, had never seen footage of the Tiananmen killings. "In China, I had only heard about the incident," she said. "Hong Kong people are lucky. They can know the truth. . . . I admire their courage." 

In another development certain to alarm Chinese officials, members of a pro-Taiwan organization raised a Taiwanese flag during the vigil. "Chinese in Taiwan can vote for their president," said Tang Man-chun, 29, of the China Youth Services and Recreation Center. "It is a shame that we people in Hong Kong cannot have the same rights, even after returning to the so-called motherland." 

Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said the large turnout at the vigil reflected growing anger that Beijing is breaking its promise to give Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and is trying to influence the results of legislative elections in September. Pro-democracy candidates hope to win a majority that could be used to block government legislation and force concessions from China on democratic reform. 

But three popular radio talk show hosts critical of the Chinese government have quit their jobs in the past month, claiming they had received threats authorized by Beijing. 

"China has started stretching its hands into Hong Kong," said Lai Man-heung, 30, who arrived at the vigil in a wheelchair. "It banned our democracy. It's time for us to come out and show our anger." 
 

Pan reported from Beijing. 

AI INDEX: ASA 17/020/2004     3 June 2004

People are still imprisoned, and are being arrested and harassed for their links with the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square fifteen years ago. Scores of people remain in prison for their part in the protests, Amnesty International said. 

There has been no open inquiry into the deaths and arrests surrounding the demonstrations. Amnesty International has records of more than 50 people it believes are still imprisoned for their part in the protests. This number is a fraction of the true figure, which has never been released by the authorities.

Three women, Ding Zilin, Zhang Xianling and Huang Jinping, were detained for several days in March in an apparent attempt to stop them from commemorating the anniversary. All are members of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of victims' relatives who campaign for accountability and justice over the crackdown in June 1989. 

The bodies of some of those killed during the crackdown were discovered in unmarked graves in central Beijing. At least 30 other demonstrators who disappeared that night have never been accounted for and are presumed dead. Their families suffer enduring trauma as any prospect of finding the bodies diminishes. 

Ding Zilin said she feared massive construction in preparation for the 2008 Olympics would make it "extremely difficult to find even one more trace." Her son, Jiang Jielian, was 17 when he was shot in the back and killed near Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

Other significant voices within China continue to call on the government for justice and to admit the crackdown was wrong. These include HIV and environmental activist, Hu Jia, who was briefly detained in April after appealing for justice.

The doctor who exposed the SARS coverup in China, Jiang Yangyong, was working at a nearby hospital on the night of 3 June 1989 and recalled treating nearly 90 victims. He was also questioned by police in March after writing an open letter stating the authorities had acted "in a frenzied fashion, using tanks, machine guns, and other weapons to suppress the totally unarmed students and citizens, killing... innocent students... Now 15 years have gone by and the authorities are expecting the people to forget the incident gradually," he wrote. "On the contrary, the people have become increasingly disappointed and angry."

Amnesty International continues to call on the government to conduct an independent inquiry into the killing of unarmed students and demonstrators. Those found responsible should be tried and brought to justice. It calls on the government to release all those who are still held in connection with the Tiananmen crackdown and who never received fair trials. 
 

Background

The 1989 protests began in Beijing and spread to other major cities and provinces throughout China. Demonstrators called on the government for an end to corruption and for democracy and other political and social rights. On the night of the 3-4 June 1989 the army moved tanks into Tiananmen Square and killed hundreds of unarmed civilians on their route. Tens of thousands were arrested across the country in the aftermath. 

In March 2004 in their annual white paper on human rights, the Chinese government claimed it had made 'landmark progress' in protecting human rights in 2003. It came ahead of a European Union discussion on lifting its arms embargo against China. This was imposed in 1989 as a direct response to the actions of the government against the protesters on Tiananmen Square. The embargo was not lifted.
 

(New York, June 4, 2004) -- Fifteen years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese authorities are harassing activists to discourage them from publicly discussing the events of June 4, 1989, Human Rights Watch said today.

In the days leading up to the anniversary, Chinese security forces have warned, harassed, and intrusively monitored dissidents, writers, academics, and long-time pro-democracy activists. Over the past week, police have ordered some of its critics to leave Beijing. At least one critic was beaten when he tried to leave his home. 

"The Chinese government is trying to wipe out the memory of Tiananmen Square, but the horror of what happened still resonates inside and outside China," said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director. "We don't even know exactly who died in the massacre. The Chinese authorities need to punish those responsible, compensate the victims, and allow those who fled the country to return home." 

The Chinese government has failed to establish accountability for those who ordered the use of deadly force that killed and injured hundreds of peaceful protesters, Human Rights Watch said. 

On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government turned its troops and tanks against its own citizens to stop a coalition of students, workers, academics, writers and journalists from peacefully agitating for a pluralistic political system and the freedom to speak their minds. Hundreds of civilians lost their lives in the streets near Beijing's Tiananmen Square. In recent years, Chinese citizens have called for a reassessment of what the government termed a "counterrevolutionary rebellion," but the Chinese leadership has refused.

To mark the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Human Rights Watch has launched a special web page, "Tiananmen, Fifteen Years On." The new page updates the stories of those labeled "the most wanted" by the Chinese government, and revisits Human Rights Watch's in-depth reporting on some of the prominent pro-democracy activists during June 4, 1989, and afterwards.

"Tiananmen, 15 Years On" is available at: www.hrw.org/campaigns/china/scholars/t15/
 
 

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