Take action for Tiananmen Square’s victims

Today’s not just the date of some minor elections that will serve to highlight the faultlines in a scrappy and struggling government: it’s also 20 years since the Tiananmen Square massacres. This is something that the Chinese authorities would rather forget; Amnesty International won’t let them.

The massacres happened when the Chinese government, in a desperate attempt to quell a democracy movement threatening the entire power structure, attacked massed protesters in the square and in the surrounding streets.

Nobody knows how many people were killed by the army, more or less indiscriminately – the government’s own figure suggests over 250 killed and 7,000 wounded; this figure is universally viewed as far too low. A police crackdown in the following days saw many more arrested. The uprising was successfully crushed and the Communist Party remains in power to this day.

There are some good first-person accounts in this Times article, and a detailed explanation of the events in this New York Times article.

A lot of reportage leading up to the 20th anniversary has focused on the fact that the Tiananmen Square massacre is almost unknown within China. I’m not sure how true this is, but either way there have been no memorial activities and no government admission marking the deaths, or allowing the bereaved families to mourn.

Amnesty International is calling on people to sign a petition supporting this letter to Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China. The letter, from Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan, calls upon the Chinese government to acknowledge that the events of June 4, 1989 took place, and to open an independent inquiry into the events. It also asks that the mothers of victims be allowed to publicly mourn the death.

The petition is here. Over 7,500 people have signed it already. It’s open until June 15. I think it’s unlikely that the Chinese government will accede to the demands, but it all contributes to the steady drip, drip, drip of pressure on them for more openness and transparency.