Tiananmen Square Massacre: 36 years later still no justice or freedom.
“This is for the lost souls of June 4th.” - Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, 2010
Thirty six years ago the Chinese Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets in April of 1989 and occupied Tiananmen Square for months was violently crushed by the Chinese communist dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989. By dawn on June 4, 1989 scores of demonstrators were shot and killed or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called "People's Liberation Army."
A 2017 declassified British diplomatic cable revealed that "at least 10,000 people were killed. The Chinese Communist regime still defends committing this massacre, and is punishing those who seek to remember and observe the date.
George Orwell wrote in "As I Please" in the Tribune on February 4, 1944 that "[t]he really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future."
We are witnessing this attempt to silence the victims, erase and rewrite the history of the 1989 Tiananmen protests and the crackdown and massacre that began on June 3, 1989 through social media and in the real world. People are being arrested for engaging in silent, nonviolent protests in remembrance of students and workers murdered by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on orders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Making this known is the most effective method to combat it by amplifying the voices of those impacted, and who continue to demand justice. This is the link to the 2025 declaration by the Tiananmen Mothers, translated by Human Rights in China.
The Czech writer Milan Kundera wrote that "[t]he struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." This is the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party in its effort to erase the mass protests, months long occupation and crackdown in Tiananmen Square, and across China. It is also why we must remember and honor courageous Chinese dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo martyred for his commitment to nonviolence and democracy.
If you are in the Washington DC area then join the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on June 4 at 8:00pm at the Victims of Communism Memorial located on the corner of New Jersey and Massachusetts Avenues to honor the legacy of the brave men and women who stood for freedom, and paid the ultimate price, at their annual Tiananmen Square Massacre candlelight vigil
Please also share over social media documentary information on what happened. For example, the three hour 1995 documentary, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, provides an over view of the entire protest, and its context in Chinese history, and it is available online. The BBC in 2019 provided a more concise synopsis of the crackdown which is shared below.