Thirty Years After Tiananmen…
June 3rd, 2019Via: Reuters:
Three decades after China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, increased government suppression of rights activism has pushed the demonstrators’ original goals further away than ever.
In April 1989, weeks before Chinese leaders ordered a military assault to clear the protesters from central Beijing, tens of thousands of students got behind seven key demands – including a free press and freedom of speech, disclosure of leaders’ assets and freedom to demonstrate.
With the demands embodied in a 10-metre (33 ft) high “Goddess of Democracy” sculpture modeled on the Statue of Liberty and printed on thousands of leaflets, the students defied Beijing’s declaration of martial law in calling for reforms to a government rife with corruption and a country shaken by growing inequality.
But rights advocates say the ruling Communist Party, which on Tuesday faces the highly sensitive June 4 anniversary of Chinese troops opening fire on their own people, has in the past 10 years suppressed a civil society nurtured by years of economic development.
“It is much, much worse than 1989,” Shao Jiang, one of the student leaders instrumental in crafting the list of demands, told Reuters from London, where he lives in exile.
Just saw an excellent ABC documentary called ‘China’s Artful Dissident’, which is mostly about the trials of a Chinese Australian political artist, but also about the connection between Tiananmen and now. At one point, there is an interview with a couple of survivors of the massacre.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-04/badiucao-tiananmen-square-china-artist-takes-off-mask/11173530