The New School for Democracy is to hold an online event on Friday to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the organization said yesterday.
“The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] cannot escape responsibility for the Tiananmen Massacre,” the organization told an online news conference, adding that the whole world was part of the resistance against China.
New School for Democracy director of advocacy Kuo Li-hsuan (郭歷軒) said that since its inception, the organization has urged the CCP to present the facts surrounding the massacre.
There used to be memorial events in Hong Kong, but democracy advocate Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) and others were arrested over their participation in an event last year, Kuo said.
Such events are banned in Hong Kong and Macau, he said.
“Taiwan is a country that allows lawful assembly, so we should continue to gather and press China over its responsibility,” he said.
This year’s event would be online due the COVID-19 pandemic, but a large LED screen in Liberty Square in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正) would display a message about the massacre, Kuo said.
“This year marks 32 years since the Tiananmen Massacre, but the CCP has never apologized and has not made reparations to the victims,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said.
The CCP still arrests Chinese democracy advocates, including those in Hong Kong and Macau, Hung said.
The CCP must be resisted or it will spread its authoritarianism beyond its borders, he said.
Citing members of the Tiananmen Mothers — a group comprising family members of people killed in the massacre — Taiwan Association for Human Rights policy director Shih Yi-hsiang (施逸翔) said that the association is worried that young Chinese today have not learned about the events surrounding the June 4, 1989, protests and the Chinese government crackdown.
“Democratic Taiwan has no reason to keep quiet on the issue,” Shih said. “The hands of time cannot be turned back, but if the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests had succeeded, China would already be on the road to democratization.”
Instead, China today resembles the world depicted in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the invasive surveillance and oppression of the CCP, he said.
Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan chairman Tashi Tsering said Tibetans had held out hope that the protests would transform the CCP, which had already been suppressing Tibetans for roughly three decades by then.
Tibetans were disappointed that the CPP quashed the movement in a bloody crackdown, Tashi said, adding that hopefully many people would join the online event to commemorate the massacre.
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