20 years ago massacre in Peking (3./.4.1989)

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the massacre on the Square of Heavenly Peace in Peking the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has accused the Chinese government of still persecuting the survivors of the blood-bath, their relatives and critics. „China’s rulers are systematically refusing justice to the relatives of the victims”, says the GfbV in a 19-page report on the massacre published on Tuesday. China’s government is calling on the European Union to remove the arms embargo then imposed. However Peking refuses any investigation into the brutal crushing of the peaceful protests in the night of 3rd to 4th June 1989. The blood-bath is still a taboo in the Chinese media, those responsible for the murders have not been punished and any fresh political evaluation of the protest movement is rejected.

Two decades after the bloody crushing of the protests Chinese dissidents are still being placed under house-arrest, says the criticism in the report. Human rights activists calling out to the memorial services have been interrogated and intimidated. The „Association of the Tienanmen Mothers”, which links many relatives of the victims of the massacre, has been subjected to severe intimidation. Several people who expressed in public their sorrow over the blood-bath, have been arrested or beaten by the police.

Zhang Shijun, 40 years old, was arrested on 20th March 2009 after expressing publicly in an interview with the news agency Associated Press his regret at having been involved in the massacre as a soldier.

The deputy chairperson of the „Independent Chinese Association of Writers, PEN, Jiang Qisheng, was threatened and interrogated by the police on 31st March 2009. The former Tianmen prisoner was sentenced again to a prison-term for calling out to a public memorial meeting for the victims of the massacre. On his interrogation at the end of March the police confiscated several computers, books and manuscripts.

The retired professor Sun Wenguang from the Shandong university was beaten up by security forces in April 2009 when he ignored their warnings and paid public tribute to the reform politician Zhao Ziyang, who died in 2005. Zhao Ziyang.wanted to prevent the brutal crushing of the student protests of 1989. The 75-year old former professor was immediately before his public memorial speech at the heroes’ monument in the Shandong Mountains attacked by five security men and thrown down a six-foot embankment. In the attack he broke three ribs.

Memorandum in German (pdf)