The US Congress called on Tuesday on China to launch a UN-backed probe into the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre and free all political prisoners on the eve of the bloodshed’s 20th anniversary.
The resolution was part of a more forceful response by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime advocate for human rights in China who caused a stir last week with her unusually muted comments while on a trip to Beijing.
The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution offering sympathy to those who died on June 3 and June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops crushed a pro-democracy uprising in Beijing’s vast central square.
The resolution asked China “to invite full and independent investigations into the Tiananmen Square crackdown, assisted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Committee of the Red Cross.”
It called on China to free the dozens of prisoners believed still to be in jail for taking part in the protests.
The resolution also demands that China end “harassment” of activists, including signatories of Charter 08 — a petition last year calling for political reform — and the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of relatives seeking a probe into the crackdown.
The resolution is likely to upset China, which regularly bristles at foreign criticism of its human rights record or its treatment of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
However, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not made any public comments yet ahead of the anniversary.
The House resolution was backed by Pelosi — who infuriated China in 1991 by unfurling a banner in Tiananmen Square but said little in public during a visit to discuss climate change.
Pelosi, who is third in line to the presidency, revealed on Tuesday that she had directly petitioned Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) for the release of 10 prisoners.
Pelosi rejected criticism that she had not pressed China on human rights during her weeklong trip that ended on Sunday.
“We had an agenda that focused on climate change but any agenda that we have with the government of China will also include human rights,” said Pelosi, who was also upbeat on US-China cooperation on global warming.
“Unless we talk about human rights in China and Tibet, we abdicate all authority to talk about human rights any place in the world,” Pelosi said.
Meanwhile, foreign journalists were barred from Tiananmen Square yesterday as police fanned out across the vast plaza.
Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police guarded entrances to Tiananmen Square. Officers demanded identification and turned away those whose passports said they were journalists.
The sweeping measures have been imposed even though there were few signs of efforts to mark the protests within China, where the government squelches all discussion of them.
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