36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre

On the occasion of the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre (June 4, 1989), the Society or threatened Peoples (STP) would like to commemorate those murdered by the Chinese army and their families. “Until today, the association of the ‘Mothers of Tiananmen’ is calling for a public reappraisal of the massacre,” reported Hanno Schedler, STP expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. Recently, the Mothers of Tiananmen published a statement – signed by 108 persons – in which they demanded the Chinese government to publicly address the crimes.

“Despite all the intimidation attempts by the Chinese state against the mothers over the past 36 years, they continue to speak out against the silence and are now demanding a complete list of those killed, as well as compensation for the victims and their families,” Schedler added. The Chinese state’s violence against peaceful protesters is part of an extensive list of crimes. The Chinese government is following a policy of forgetting – similar to its approach to commemorations of the massive self-inflicted problems of the ‘great leap ahead’ and the Cultural Revolution. Many of the leaders of the 1989 protests had no choice but to flee to Hong Kong or to other states. Many of those who decided to stay in the country, such as Liu Xiaobo, were arrested – some of them more than once,” Schedler recalled. Liu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia in 2010, had been imprisoned three times since 1989 after he and other Chinese intellectuals published the “Charter 08”, calling for a democratization of China. After being imprisoned once again in December 2008, he died as a prisoner of the Chinese state in 2017.

After the massacre, Hong Kong – which at that time was not yet part of the Chinese territory – was an important escape destination. After Britain gave Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city remained an important place of remembrance of the Tiananmen Massacre. Today, commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre in Hong Kong is criminalized by the National Security Law of 2020. “Now, those who took part in the protests in 1989 can only commemorate the victims abroad. Larger celebrations take place in Taiwan, which is militarily threatened by China as well,” Schedler added.

In April and May of 1989, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students and citizens had taken to the streets to protest against mismanagement and corruption. The Chinese army crushed the peaceful protests on Tiananmen Square on the night of June 4, 1989. The exact number of people killed is still not known.