Zhang，Han:The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has recently marked its 23rd anniversary
张涵（Zhang，Han）
The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has recently marked its 23rd anniversary, but any mention of that day remains forbidden in China. The Chinese government continues to forbid any recognition of the massacre and to deny any ongoing demands for political reforms.
Discussions of the unrest June 4, 1989 remain taboo in the country. Now, twenty-three years have passed. Many things have changed: people grew older, and some key Communist Party leaders from 1989 have passed away. But many people know that this chapter of China’s history has not closed yet. And the country is still filled with corrupt government officials who continue to ignore basic human rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of press.
The truth of the demonstrations has never been publicly marked in China. But people have never forgotten this arguably the darkest day in the modern history of China. Every year on the eve of the 1989 massacre anniversary, people from all over the world use their own ways to remember those lives long lost in the tragedy. People in Hong Kong took part in a candlelight vigil and posted articles and photos over the internet.
If you have had a chance to look at the pictures of the June 4 massacre, you might have seen hundreds of innocent unarmed civilians, mostly college students, being smashed by tanks. You might have seen pictures of them being repeatedly shot and brutally killed by gunfire. When you see nothing but despair left on the young faces of those survivors, you feel their confusion, pain, anger, and hatred.
No one should ever forget the crime committed on the early morning of June 4, 1989 by the Communist Party, who sent in tanks and soldiers to clear Tiananmen Square. It was a party that was and still is willing to defend its autocracy and absolute power at any cost, even if it meant spilling blood of thousands of its own young civilians. The Tiananmen crackdown has made the Communist Party, who brought a violent end to a six-week of pro-democracy pretest in 1989, the most brutal and vicious tyrant in the modern history of China.
The 1989 massacre left an ugly scar to many of its victims and their families. We urge the Chinese government to recognize this part of history. A government who is forgetful has no future. Tanks, tear gas and gunfire should never be turned to a country’s own civilians to stop them from demanding political reform, anti-corruption and freedom. We hereby renew our call for China to punish corruptions, to stop political violence, to protect the universal human rights of all its citizens, and finally to end its one-party autocracy.
Zhang, Han
June 4, 2012 |
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