An event was held in Taipei yesterday to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, with participants calling on China to respect human rights and release arrested Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲).
More than 100 people attended the event near Taipei’s Liberty Square to remember the bloody crackdown in Beijing on June 4, 1989.
The event also paid tribute to a number of prisoners of conscience held by Chinese authorities, including Lee.
Exiled Chinese dissident Wang Dan (王丹), a prominent student leader of the 1989 Beijing democracy movement, said the annual commemoration was not just a tribute to those who died in the massacre, but also a plea for universal human rights and democracy.
“[The event] is also a protest against the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], which cannot be forgiven for their crimes,” Wang said.
“It is useless to place hopes in the Chinese government. Tsai should address her words to the Chinese people and speak to Chinese society so that ordinary Chinese can understand how much Taiwan’s president cares about them,” he said.
He asked Taiwanese to continue organizing events commemorating the massacre to renew the spirit of democracy and human rights and protest against the CCP.
“We might not have money, power or many people to campaign for our cause, but we do have persistence. Persistence is the most powerful weapon we have, and we could win if we use that weapon long enough,” he said, citing the decades-long efforts of gay rights advocate Chi Chia-wei (祁家威), which Wang said led to a landmark constitutional ruling in favor of same-sex marriage last month.
Calling for Lee’s release, Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Chiu E-ling (邱伊翎) said the government should take a tougher stance toward China over unwarranted arrests of Taiwanese.
Lee went missing on March 19 after entering China via Macau and was later confirmed to have been detained by the Chinese authorities.
China on May 26 announced that Lee was arrested on charges of “subversion of state power.”
“It is difficult to imagine that Taiwanese could be charged with such an archaic crime as state subversion in 2017,” Chiu said.
Lee’s arrest is clear evidence that Taiwan cannot distance itself from human rights violations in China and other nations, Chiu said.
“If Taiwan identifies itself as a democracy, it has to ask its partners to observe the same human rights values instead of giving in to human rights violations while seeking [economic] cooperation opportunities,” she said.
Chiu urged the government to take concrete action, such as implementing economic sanctions if Beijing continues to ignore Taipei’s demands on Lee’s case.
“The government cannot just resort to empty calls without taking any concrete action. Otherwise, China will believe that the arrest would have no impact on cross-strait relations,” she said.
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