#六四鎮壓

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June 4, 2024

Hong Kong Activists Risk Arrest to Mark 35th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre


In Hong Kong, some activists are marking the 35th anniversary of the
Tiananmen Square massacre despite a ban on protests and a heightened
crackdown by authorities. On Monday, police arrested artist Sanmu Chen
as he engaged in a protest performance. In the middle of a busy street,
Chen appeared to mimic pouring himself a drink and toasting, followed by
drawing the numbers "8964" in the air with his fingers - the date of the
massacre. On June 4, 1989, the Chinese military attacked a student-led
pro-democracy protest in Beijing, killing hundreds, if not thousands, of
people.

#VIIV #eight-squared #六四鎮壓 #六四屠殺 #may-35th #8964 #tiananmen-square #tiananmen-square-massacre #june-fourth-incident #自由 #中国 #beijing #china #北京 #freedom #liberty #democracy #民主 #1989 #massacre

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Children honor parents' legacies as victims of 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown

by Joyce Huang

Taipei, Taiwan --

[gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/voaheadlines/2024/Jun/04/https---www.voanews.com-a-children-honor-parents-legacies-as-victims-of-1989-tiananmen-square-crackdown-7642001.html](gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/voaheadlines/2024/Jun/04/https---www.voanews.com-a-children-honor-parents-legacies-as-victims-of-1989-tiananmen-square-crackdown-7642001.html)

Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.

Thirty-five years after the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
captured the attention of a shocked world, the children of two victims
of China's 1989 violent crackdown against democracy honor their
parents' legacies.\
\
Zhang Hongyuan, 25, is currently in the Netherlands seeking political
asylum. He fled there in April 2023, after authorities in Wuhan of
China's Hubei province, threatened to arrest him for his
public-interest activism. His advocacy followed the footsteps of his
father, Zhang Yi, who was arrested 35 years ago when Chinese
authorities put an end to public democratic rallies in Tiananmen Square
and in many cities on June 4, 1989. He was then jailed for two years.\
\
Zhang Hongyuan had started a career as a field engineer at the Dapu
Power Plant in Meizhou city in Guangdong province. But he found himself
on a different path in 2020, when he helped his father spread the word
in Wuhan about the outbreak of COVID-19.\
\
Later that year, he worked as a translator for a documentary by
dissident visual artist Ai Weiwei. In 2022, Zhang Hongyuan recorded
video footage in China of public protests against strict
pandemic-related mass civilian lockdowns. His involvement in the White
Paper Movement, as the citizens' public expressions against the
lockdowns became known, and another dissident, Yang Min's, act of
seeking asylum abroad prompted him to flee China on short notice 15
months ago.\
\
Grace Fang, now 23, immigrated to the U.S. at age eight. She did not
learn until she turned 11 or 12 that her father, Zheng Fang, had his
legs crushed by a Chinese military tank during the Tiananmen Square
violence.\
\
Grace Fang graduated in 2023 from Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Last June, she helped host a San Francisco Bay area event remembering
the crackdown.\
\
The Chinese government refers to the events at Tiananmen Square in June
1989 as a "counterrevolutionary riot" and downplays its severity. In
China, discussion of the event in media or textbooks of the event is
largely forbidden. The authorities regularly harass those at home or
overseas who seek to keep the memory of the events alive.\
\
Zhang Hongyuan told VOA he was raised in China by his father and forced
to mature early, especially after Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader
Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. Zhang Hongyuan said authorities began
to tighten control over the dissidents of the "1989 generation," which
included his father, Zhang Yi.\
\
Frequent police surveillance, house searches and detention had an
effect on Zhang Yi, which in turn had an effect on his son.\
\
"When I was a minor, other people's fathers went to the police station
to pick up their sons, but I was a son who went to pick up my father. I
did this a lot," Zhang Hongyuan said.\
\
"It was precisely these things that prompted me to realize the inhuman
side of totalitarian rule at a young age," he said, adding that it gave
him the courage to echo the boy on bike during the Tiananmen movement,
whose words became famous, and say, "It's my duty and I have to do
something."\
\
Zhang Yi was in Wuhan in 1989 and was attending public rallies in
support of students nationwide when he was arrested on June 4. Zhang Yi
spent two years in prison, convicted of assembling a crowd to disrupt
traffic during that mid-1989 period of democratic expression.\
\
"There was a big black spot on my father's back,'' Zhang Hongyuan said.
"He showed it to me when I was in junior high school and said it was
caused by the beating by the guards, as well as the humid environment
in the detention center. From that time on, I really began to
understand June 4."\
\
About 15 years ago, Zheng Fang and his daughter, Grace Fang immigrated
to the U.S. He is now the president of the China Democracy Education
Foundation in San Francisco.\
\
Zheng Fang said he is proud that all his three daughters, including
Grace who studied American environmental politics and earned a college
degree, have a clear understanding of the Chinese Communist government.
He told VOA that while Grace Fang has grown up to be an American, she
understands the June 4 massacre first-hand and how China's repression
had impacted the Chinese people including her family.\
\
Grace Fang told VOA that she admires her father, who is a ''hero'' for
standing publicly with the democratic movement in China in June 1989.
But as someone who has fewer ties with China now, she can only help
translate for her father during talks and presentations at which he
shares his experience in China opposing state intimidation.\
\
She said that while she is angered by what happened to her father, she
has hope for the Chinese to have a better future.\
\
"Although this historical event [June 4] was very cruel and the
government was wrong in many ways, and the human rights situation [in
China] was definitely not good, I no longer have hatred, and I just
feel sad [about the truth] because I still hope that the Chinese people
can have a better future," Grace Fang told VOA.\
\
She said it is important that young Chinese are aware of recent history
in China, especially about the Tiananmen Square period, because they
have the right to know the truth about their country and government.\
\
With hope, she said, that young Chinese in the future should have the
opportunity to participate in their country's social and political
affairs and promote a more open and free China.\
\
Adrianna Zhang from VOA's Mandarin Service contributed to this story.

#VIIV #eight-squared #六四鎮壓 #六四屠殺 #may-35th #8964 #tiananmen-square #tiananmen-square-massacre #june-fourth-incident #自由 #中国 #beijing #china #北京 #freedom #liberty #democracy #民主 #1989 #massacre

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Diaspora community holds Tiananmen commemorations despite crackdowns in Hong Kong, China

by William Yang

Taipei, Taiwan --

[gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/voaheadlines/2024/Jun/04/https---www.voanews.com-a-diaspora-community-holds-tiananmen-commemorations-despite-crackdowns-in-hong-kong-china-7641813.html](gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/voaheadlines/2024/Jun/04/https---www.voanews.com-a-diaspora-community-holds-tiananmen-commemorations-despite-crackdowns-in-hong-kong-china-7641813.html)

Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.

Authorities in China and Hong Kong are tightening control over civil
society as people in more than a dozen cities around the world
commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on
Tuesday.\
\
Ahead of the anniversary, Hong Kong authorities arrested eight people
over social media posts commemorating June Fourth, which the police
claim were aimed at using "an upcoming sensitive date" to incite hatred
against the Hong Kong government and contained seditious intentions.\
\
Most prominent among those arrested is human rights lawyer Chow
Hang-tung, who has been detained since 2021 for organizing an annual
Tiananmen Vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park, which has been banned
since Beijing imposed the controversial National Security Law on the
former British colony in 2020.\
\
Other individuals arrested by Hong Kong police include Chow's mother
and uncle and former members of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance,
which used to organize the annual vigil and in which Chow served as
vice chairwoman before its dissolution.\
\
In addition to the eight people arrested for social media posts
commemorating June Fourth, Hong Kong police detained performance artist
Sanmu Chen Monday in the busy shopping district Causeway Bay, which was
near Victoria Park.\
\
Local media reports said Chen pretended to drink in front of a police
van and write or draw in the air. This is the second year that Chen was
detained by police on the eve of the Tiananmen Square massacre.\
\
Instead of the now-prohibited Tiananmen vigil, several pro-Beijing
community organizations are holding a "food carnival" from June 1 to
June 5 at Victoria Park, a move that some activists characterized as
ironic.\
\
In China, authorities sentenced former Tiananmen Student leader Xu
Guang to four years in jail on April 3 for demanding that the Chinese
government acknowledge the massacre and for holding a sign calling for
government compensation in front of a local police station in May 2022.\
\
Apart from Xu's jail sentences, some family members of Tiananmen
victims or former Tiananmen student leaders have also been put under
strict police surveillance ahead of Tuesday's anniversary, according to
Human Rights Watch.\
\
Chinese authorities have also censored a wide range of words, phrases,
and even emojis due to their connection to the Tiananmen Square
Massacre.\
\
Chinese activist Li Ying, who became a prominent source of news during
China's "white paper movement" in 2022, disclosed that Chinese
authorities have banned the use of the candle emoji in China, which was
commonly used for posts related to the Tiananmen Massacre.\
\
Some analysts say the increased crackdown on civil society initiated by
Hong Kong and Chinese authorities ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary
reflects their attempt to remove memories related to the tragic event.\
\
"The Hong Kong government is sending a message that June Fourth is a
clear national security red line for Hong Kong and they want to make
sure there is no commemoration or no memory of June Fourth in public,"
Maya Wang, the interim China director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA
by phone.\
\
While the two national security laws that the Hong Kong government has
implemented since 2020 have essentially outlawed public commemoration
of June Fourth, Wang said some people in the city are still using
veiled references to commemorate the event.\
\
"June Fourth continues to be a collective memory among people in Hong
Kong and you do see some of them make veiled references to the date by
wearing black or through other gestures," she said, adding that the
effect of the authorities' attempts to remove memories associated with
June Fourth remains unclear.\
\
A Christian newspaper in Hong Kong that used to release information
about the Tiananmen vigils published an almost blank front page on
Sunday as their response to the upcoming anniversary. Hong Kong's Roman
Catholic Cardinal Stephen Chow called for forgiveness and vaguely
referenced the Tiananmen anniversary in an article he published.\
\
Despite the lack of public commemoration in China and Hong Kong,
several cities around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, London, New
York, Boston, and Taipei, have each organized events to commemorate the
event, which occurred when government troops fired on student-led
pro-democracy protestors on June 4, causing what are thought to be
thousands of deaths.\
\
Zhou Fengsuo, a former Tiananmen student leader, told VOA that the
dozens of commemorative events abroad play an important role in pushing
back against the Chinese government's efforts to erase memories related
to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.\
\
"When the Chinese government tries to intensify crackdowns on the
commemoration of June Fourth, more people in the diaspora community
feel compelled to help organize or participate in commemorations of the
tragic event around the world," he said in a phone interview.\
\
Zhou has attended more than 20 Tiananmen commemorative events around
the world this year and he said many events are organized or attended
by young people or new immigrants from China.\
\
"I met a lot of Chinese people at the June Fourth Memorial Museum in
New York, and they are all actively participating in this year's
commemorative events," he said.\
\
As people around the world take part in commemorations of the Tiananmen
Massacre, some activists say they remain hopeful that this decades-long
tradition will be passed down to the next generation.\
\
"I was encouraged to see a lot of young people, including Japanese
people, take part in the June Fourth commemoration in Tokyo," said
Patrick Poon, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, adding
that young people's involvement in the event made him believe the
tradition will be continued.\
\
Through the efforts to organize commemorations of the Tiananmen Square
Massacre around the world, Wang at Human Rights Watch said the
Tiananmen anniversary is helping to strengthen linkages among different
groups in the diaspora community that focus on pushing back against the
Chinese government's crackdown on civil society.\
\
"Through these linkages, there is a growing solidarity of resistance on
the state," she told VOA.

#VIIV #eight-squared #六四鎮壓 #六四屠殺 #may-35th #8964 #tiananmen-square #tiananmen-square-massacre #june-fourth-incident #自由 #中国 #beijing #china #北京 #freedom #liberty #democracy #民主 #1989 #massacre

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1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre

六四屠殺

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre

The Tiananmen Square protests, known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government declared martial law on the night of 3 June and deployed troops to occupy the square in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square massacre. The events are sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement, the Tiananmen Square Incident, or the Tiananmen uprising.

Tiananmen Square

#VIIV #eight-squared #六四鎮壓 #六四屠殺 #may-35th #8964 #tiananmen-square #tiananmen-square-massacre #june-fourth-incident #自由 #中国 #beijing #china #北京 #freedom #liberty #democracy #民主 #1989 #massacre