Tank Man Revisited: More Details Emerge About the Iconic Image

By Patrick Witty

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Avenue in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

28 years ago, Jeff Widener ran out of film during the most important assignment of his life.
The brutal crackdown at Tiananmen Square was underway and Widener, a photographer for the Associated Press, was sent to the square to capture the scene. 

"I rode a bicycle to the Beijing Hotel," Widener says. 

"Upon my arrival, I had to get past several Chinese security police in the lobby. If they stopped and searched me, they would have found all my gear and film hidden in my clothes." 

But there, in the shadows of the hotel entrance, he saw a long-haired college kid wearing a dirty Rambo t-shirt, shorts and sandals. 

"I yelled out, 'Hi Joe! Where you been?' and then whispered that I was from AP." 

Widener remembers. 

He asked to go to the young man's room. 

"He picked up on it," says Widener, "and out of the corner of my eye I could see the approaching security men turn away, thinking I was a hotel guest."
The young man was an American. 

His name was Kirk Martsen.
Martsen told Widener that he was lucky to arrive when he did. 

Just a few minutes earlier, some hotel guests had been shot by a passing military truck full of Chinese soldiers. 

Martsen said hotel staff members had dragged the bodies back in the hotel and that he had barely escaped with his life. 

From a hotel balcony, Widener was able to take pictures with a long lens—but then he ran out of film. So he sent Martsen on a desperate hunt for more, and Martsen returned with one single roll of Fuji color negative. 

It was on this film that Widener captured one of the most iconic images in history, the lone protester facing down a row of Chinese tanks.
"After I made the image, I asked Kirk if he could smuggle my film out of the hotel on his bicycle to the AP office at the Diplomatic Compound," Widener says. 

"He agreed to do this for me as I had to stay in the hotel and wait for more supplies and could not risk being found out. I watched Kirk from my balcony, which was right over the area where the security was. In what seemed to be an eternity, Kirk unlocked his bike and started to pedal off, although a bit awkwardly because all my film was stashed in his underwear. Five hours later, a call to Mark Avery at the AP office in Beijing confirmed that the film had arrived and been transmitted world-wide. What I did not know until 20 years later was what actually transpired after Kirk pedaled the bicycle away."
On the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, I wrote an article detailing each story behind the four different versions of the iconic scene on the Lens blog of the New York Times. 

At the time of publication, Widener wasn't sure if the young man's name was Kirk or Kurt. 

Soon after, Widener says, that changed: "I was on the computer and that familiar 'You've Got Mail' rang out on AOL. I could not believe who it was from. After 20 years, Kirk had found me because of the article in the New York Times."
Widener discovered that Martsen encountered gunfire and more soldiers after he left with the precious film and that he became lost trying to navigate back streets to find the Associated Press office. 

Martsen went to the U.S. embassy and handed over the film to a U.S. Marine at the entrance, and told the embassy to forward the film to the AP office.
"Kirk risked his life," Widener says. 

"If not for all of his efforts, my pictures may never have been seen."
The next day, the image appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

Jeff Widener

Years later, the BBC flew Widener back to China to revisit the Square where he made the iconic photo. 

While walking down Changan Avenue toward the square, Widener met a German teacher sitting on the sidewalk smoking. 

Widener introduced himself and they had lunch. 

They were married in July 2010. 

"If anyone had told me that I would return from that bullet-riddled street 20 years later to meet my future wife, I would have thought them nuts," Widener says. 

"Fate has a strange sense of humor."

Tank Man at 28: Behind the Iconic Tiananmen Square Photo

By Kate Pickert

When Jeff Widener looks at the most important photograph of his career, it makes him think about failure. 

Like most news photographers, Widener is often worried that he will be absent during a critical moment and miss a critical shot. 

And like many of the most important photographs in history, Widener’s Tank Man almost didn’t happen. 

“I don't have it on my wall,” says Widener, “because every time I look at it, it reminds me how close I came to messing it up.”
In 1989, Widener was a picture editor for the Associated Press in Southeast Asia. 

As political turmoil and student protests heated up in Beijing that spring and summer, Widener was dispatched to China to cover the melee. 

Day after day, he would leave the AP bureau inside the U.S. diplomatic compound in Beijing and ride to Tiananmen Square to shoot pictures. 

At first, the assignment seemed relatively safe and straightforward. 

“The square was actually very organized. They had street sweepers. They had sort of a security ring all the way to the top, where they had printing presses. There were long lines of people getting food,” says Widener.
But around June 3, Widener’s job became more dangerous as the chaos and violent clashes in Beijing spilled into the streets. 

In one particularly terrifying encounter, a Chinese man approached Widener and opened his jacket. Inside was a machete dripping with blood. 

On another occasion, Widener was hit in the head with a rock, shattering his camera, causing a concussion and nearly killing him.
Widener’s leftover headache from the incident was still throbbing on the morning of June 5. 

His AP bosses in New York wanted someone from the bureau to go to Tiananmen Square, where government troops initiated a major crackdown on protesters the night before. 

The AP photographers on duty drew straws. Widener got the short one. 

With film stuffed down his pants and camera equipment hidden in his Levi’s jacket, Widener pedaled off in the direction of the Beijing Hotel, which stood at the edge of the square. 

After narrowly evading security in the lobby with the help of a sympathetic American exchange student, Widener made his way to a sixth-floor room.
In between sleeping off his headache, he photographed the events outside from the hotel room’s balcony. 

“There were tanks pushing burnt-out buses. There were people riding around on bicycles,” Widener remembers. 

“Occasionally, there'd be a little tinkle of a bell, and it would be a guy in a cart with a body or somebody dying, blood everywhere.”
Then suddenly, a column of tanks began rolling by and a man carrying shopping bags walked in front of them. 

Widener raised his camera and paused, anticipating the perfect moment to snap the shutter. 

“I waited for the moment that he would get shot, and I waited, and I waited,” says Widener. 

“And he wasn't.” 

Instead, the man waved his arms in front of the lead tank as it tried to proceed around him and eventually, he climbed on top of the hulking metal. 

While this was happening, Widener realized he was armed with the wrong speed film and too far away to get a good picture. 

A piece of equipment to improve the shot was on the hotel room bed, several feet away. 

Should he leave his balcony perch and get it? 

“It was again a huge gamble, and I've always gambled. So I went back to the bed, and I got it,” says Widener.
The result is an iconic picture of defiance in the face of aggression. 

“I was just relieved that I didn't mess up,” says Widener, whose photograph appeared on the front pages of newspapers the next day from New York to London and has been known since as one of the greatest news photographs of all time.
“Here's this guy who is obviously just out shopping, and finally he's just had enough " says Widener. "I assume he thinks he's going to die. But he doesn't care because for whatever reason—either he's lost a loved one or he's just had it with the government, or whatever it is—his statement is more important than his own life."
Tank man was pulled away by several others on bicycles and has never been identified, but, in a sense, he’s been with Widener for the past 25 years. 

“If somebody had a way of checking my brain thoughts, this guy probably goes through every single day. Because he's become a part of me.”

6 Things You Should Know About the Tiananmen Square Massacre

By Noah Rayman

28 years ago Wednesday, Chinese troops violently retook the square in Beijing where pro-democracy protesters had set up camp for weeks. 

The Tiananmen Square massacre left an unknown number dead, with some estimates in the thousands, and smothered a democratic movement. 

But after 28 years — and a thorough attempt by the Chinese government to conceal the events that unfolded that June — our collective memory is sometimes limited to not much more than an image of a man defiantly standing in front of a tank.
So TIME went back in history to pull out the details, context and feelings of those grim days from our own unfolding coverage at the time, including a cover story from the June 12, 1989 issue. 

The articles give color, detail and context that are sometimes lost 25 years later. 

Here are six key facts that may have been buried in time:

1. It wasn’t the only protest
The demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, which at one point had reportedly ballooned to a million people, were not the only pro-democracy protests in the country at the time. 

Demonstrations had spread to hundreds of cities, including Shanghai, China’s largest, and in the days after the military mobilized in Beijing, protesters were putting up blockades in Shanghai.
And to be sure, it wasn’t the first time protesters had filled the Square in Beijing, a space for public protest. 

More than a decade earlier, in what became known as the Tiananmen Incident, a similar if smaller-scale crackdown on protesters spawned outrage and led to a reshuffling of the nation’s top leadership.
In a report on the “Tank Man” several years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, TIME described the Square as:
Tiananmen Square -- the very heart of the Middle Kingdom, where students had demonstrated in 1919 [as part of the “May Fourth Movement”]; where Mao had proclaimed a “People’s Republic” in 1949 on behalf of the Chinese people who had “stood up”; and where leaders customarily inspect their People’s Liberation Army troops — is a virtual monument to People Power in the abstract.

2. Chinese authorities still censor information about the massacre
More than a quarter century after the massacre, the Chinese government’s extensive censorship apparatus—which employs two million online censors — still rigorously blocks information about the protest. 

The ban is so total that not only is the search term “Tiananmen Square” censored, but so too are related words and phrases. 

Authorities have even gone as far as blocking combinations of the numbers 6, 4, 1989 that might obliquely reference the date of the protest, June 4, 1989. 

So for many members of the world’s largest online population, the facts about the bloody crackdown have been erased.

3. Gorbachev entered through the back door
The protests presented an embarrassing pickle for the Chinese government during a visit from the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, the first visit from a leader of China’s communist peer in 30 years. 

The Chinese had scheduled a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People at the edge of the Square in May, as the protests raged. 

Gorbachev ended up having to go through the back door.

4. When the military opened fire, a lopsided battle ensued
In the early hours of June 4, 50 trucks and as many as 10,000 troops rumbled into the streets, TIME reported just days later. 

The military overwhelmed the civilians and began firing into crowds, but some protesters held fast, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. 

In some cases, they responded with deadly violence: Demonstrators reportedly beat two soldiers to death who had been seen killing a civilian. 

In another instance, protesters covered an armored personnel carrier in banners and then set the vehicle ablaze, trapping the crew of eight or nine soldiers. 

The military continued its onslaught and skirmishes lasted throughout the morning, “but by then the great, peaceful dream for democracy had become a horrible nightmare.” 

A doctor at the time said at least 500 were dead; a radio announcer said 1,000.

5. A goddess lived and died
A few days before the raid on the square, “in a flash of exuberance” as TIME wrote at the time, the protesters erected a “Goddess of Democracy” that partially resembled the Statue of Liberty. 

The 30-foot statue swiftly made from Styrofoam and plaster became a symbolic monument to the pro-democracy movement, and was intended to be large enough to be difficult or at least embarrassing for authorities to take down. 

Tanks crushed her when troops took the square, TIME reported.

6. The Tank Man was and still is anonymous
“Almost certainly he was seen in his moment of self-transcendence by more people than ever laid eyes on Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and James Joyce combined,” essayist Pico Iyer wrote in TIME about Tank Man, the nameless individual who was pictured stopping a column of tanks on June 5, a day after the massacre. 

The man was ultimately hustled to safety by fellow protesters and quite lost to the crowd. 

Only rumors of his identity persist, and when Chinese leader Jiang Zermin was asked a year later if he know what had happened to the young man, he responded: “I think never killed.”

Check out Iyer’s full piece on the “Unknown Rebel” here.
TIME's issue from June 12, 1989 features a cover from the massacre. 

You can read a free preview of the story, which is part of our archive open to subscribers, here.

28th anniversary

Tens of Thousands in Hong Kong Commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre
By Kevin Lui / Hong Kong

For the 28th year in succession, a sea of light illuminated Hong Kong's Victoria Park on the evening of June 4 in commemoration of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
Tens of thousands of people gathered Sunday night local time to remember the day when China's Communist government deployed tanks and troops in the heart of Beijing to put weeks of pro-democracy student protests to a bloody end. 

The number of fatalities remains unknown but is generally thought to be in the thousands.
By 8:25pm, six adjacent soccer fields had been filled with demonstrators braving the hot and muggy weather, forcing latecomers to spill over onto nearby lawns.
Organizers estimated that 110,000 people had gathered, according to public broadcaster RTHK. 

They held up candles and backlit smartphone screens in the night sky, chanted democracy slogans, and sang songs. 

People posed for photos by a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue first erected in Beijing 28 years ago. 

Wreaths were laid for the Tiananmen dead and a minute's silence held.
Janet Chan, a 26-year-old marketing executive, said she had come to Victoria Park to "commemorate the sacrifice." 

She told TIME: "We fight for democracy in China and Hong Kong".
Ken Chiu, a teacher in his 30s, came with his wife and two young children. 

"It's education through action, to let them know what happened," says Chiu, who adds that he was a schoolchild himself when the massacre took place and remembers his teacher breaking down in front of the class the day after.
"My [10-year-old] son now starts asking me what happened back then," Chiu says.

From the stage, speakers condemned the communist regime in Beijing. 

"China is strong but the people are weak, corruption is rife — is this the country of the people?" asked lawyer and former legislator Albert Ho to loud applause. 

The chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, the vigil's main organizer, Ho said the people of Hong Kong had demonstrated their "strong and firm will" 28 years in succession.
Several activists, mostly students, exhorted vigil participants to march on Beijing's representative office in Hong Kong at the conclusion of the vigil. 

Hundreds left by the park's western entrance, defying large numbers of police who informed them that the march was illegal.
They were allowed to proceed to the office, where they chanted slogans and laid out incense and food offerings at the office's door, before dispersing largely in peace. 

One demonstrator burned a Communist Party flag with anti-party slogans written across it.

'The start of the fight for democracy'
Public discussion about Tiananmen has always been suppressed in China. 

Hong Kong — a British colony until it was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 — remains the only place under Beijing's effective jurisdiction that allows open memorialization of the crackdown.
But much has changed between now and 1989. 

In the past few years, Hong Kong has become a city seething with political discontent and has even witnessed the emergence of separatist and pro-independence sentiment.
The democracy movement launched a massive push for greater freedoms in 2014, with the 79-day street protests known as the Umbrella Revolution.
Then, two pro-independence activists found themselves briefly elected to the city's legislature, before being ejected by a court at both the local administration and Beijing's behest. 

Attempts to unseat a few more legislators with democratic or separatist leanings are currently underway.
Now, a new leader is about to assume office, facing a populace more disgruntled and resigned than ever and the narrow manner of her election, while opposition activists are facing court cases for acts of civil disobedience.

Against the backdrop, the meaning of the annual June 4 vigil is shifting, especially among the city's younger generation.
"June 4 is, in fact, like the Umbrella Movement of the last century in terms of its significance," said Joshua Wong, the student activist who shot to international fame during the 2014 protests.
"Ten years ago, many Hong Kong people would have thought of June 4 as the start of the fight for democracy," he told TIME, stressing the importance of its commemoration.
"I want to mourn those who sacrificed for democracy," 20-year-old student Aily Wing told TIME, "to show that there are those in Hong Kong who have not forgotten this."

Participants hold candles during a vigil to mark the 28th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing at Hong Kong's Victoria Park, on June 4, 2017. 

Many young people in Hong Kong, however, do not share those sentiments, regarding China as a mere "next-door country" whose political struggles need not concern them explained Yuen Chan, a journalism instructor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).
"The feeling is not only that 'it hasn't got anything to do with me,' but it's [also] seen as a kind of sentimental indulgence, almost, obstructing Hongkongers from achieving real autonomy, because [people are] mired in this memory, this linkage to the mainland,” she said.
To be sure, bickering over the anniversary's local significance and relevance is nothing new, but the animosity and heated rhetoric in earlier years appear to be replaced by indifference and apathy this year from parties who are otherwise engaged in the fight for democracy, freedom and autonomy.
On June 4 last year, 11 tertiary student unions held meetings on Hong Kong identity instead of attending the candlelight vigil. 

Of those local media notes this year that almost half aren't marking the date at all.
The 110,000 attendance figure put out by the organizers, while not inconsiderable, is thought to be the lowest for some years.
“The 1989 student movement and massacre definitely carry specific meanings for different generations and for Hong Kong, but we’re starting to see its significance fade among youngsters,” said Thomas Lee, external secretary of CUHK's student union.
"We [separatists] are not going to deny that this is a tragedy or a case where a dictatorial regime massacres its own people," said Chan Ho-tin, convenor of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party. 

"It’s a crime against humanity, this needs no arguing."
But for youngsters who "didn’t experience this firsthand, it’s something very distant," he continued. "Second, we don’t think we’re Chinese. So that’s a great difference from those Hong Kong people who continue to attend the [candlelight] vigil" out of an emotional connection.

'A signal to the outside world'
But for the old guard, the act of remembrance at Victoria Park remains powerful as ever.
Commemorating Tiananmen "has something to do with humanity, with upholding certain universal values," said Ho the vigil organizer.
What's more, the vigil "is a signal to the outside world about the tolerance level of Beijing to Hong Kong,” he told TIME.
He noted that recent attempt by Beijing to try steer Hong Kong’s education system to a more patriotic direction and stern warnings against secessionism “give the signal that the freedom we’ve been enjoying in the civil society will be threatened or curtailed.”
The extent to which these pressures can be sustained "depend on our determination, will power [and] commitment," said Ho.
All agree that the task of resisting Beijing's encroachment is daunting
"What 1989 revealed to the public of Hong Kong, in political terms, is that the Chinese government doesn’t allow for any space for compromise or negotiation,” Wong told TIME.
"As long as you live in Hong Kong, in the face of a communist regime exercising jurisdiction over you, you need to know its history, how it crushed protests in the past."

Master in Democracy

Learn from us on democracy, Taiwan tells China on Tiananmen anniversary
By J.R. Wu | TAIPEI

A banner with a photo of a pro-democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen printed on it is displayed at an exhibition, two days before the 28th anniversary of a military crackdown of the movement, in Hong Kong, China June 2, 2017. 

A liquor bottle bearing a label commemorating the 1989 military crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen is shown at a news conference, two days before the 28th anniversary of the crackdown, in Hong Kong, China June 2, 2017. 

Taiwan's president offered on Sunday to help China transition to democracy, on the anniversary of China's bloody crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Tsai Ing-wen said that the biggest gap between Taiwan and China is democracy and freedom, needling Beijing at a time when relations between China and the self-ruled island are at a low point.
"For democracy: some are early, others are late, but we all get there in the end," Tsai said, writing in Chinese on her Facebook page and tweeting some of her comments in English on Twitter on the 28th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown.
"Borrowing on Taiwan's experience, I believe that China can shorten the pain of democratic reform," Tsai said.
Beijing distrusts Tsai and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party because it traditionally advocates independence for Taiwan. 

Beijing says the island is part of China and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control.
After nearly 40 years of martial law imposed by the Nationalists on Taiwan, the island in the late 1980s began its own transition to democracy, holding direct presidential elections since 1996.
"When democracy is in front of you, no country can ever go back," Tsai wrote.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tsai's remarks. 

The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China.
However, tens of thousands of people were expected to gather later in the day in Hong Kong to mark the anniversary, the only place in China where such large-scale public commemorations happen.
Beijing sent tanks to quell the 1989 protests, and has never released a death toll. 

Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.
On Friday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that China had long ago reached a conclusion about the events of that period.
"I hope you can pay more attention to the positive changes happening in all levels of Chinese society," she said, without elaborating.
In Beijing, security was tight as usual at Tiananmen Square, with long lines at bag and identity checks. 

The square itself was peaceful, thronged with tourists taking photos.
One elderly resident of a nearby neighborhood, out for stroll at the edge of the square, said he remembered the events of 28 years ago clearly.
"The soldiers were just babies, 18, 19 years old. They didn't know what they were doing," he told Reuters, asking to be identified only by his family name, Sun.
While some search terms on China's popular Twitter-like microblog Weibo appeared to be blocked on Sunday, some users were able to post cryptic messages.
"Never forget," wrote one, above a picture of mahjong tiles with the numbers 6 and 4 on them, for the month and day of the anniversary.

Rogue Nation: Own Up to Tiananmen Massacre

At 28th Anniversary of Bloodshed, Repression Outweighs Reform
HRW

People fill Tiananmen Square in front of the Mausoleum of late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong and the Monument to the People's Heroes in Beijing, on May 17, 1989.

New York – The Chinese government should acknowledge its role in the massacre of untold numbers of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators around June 4, 1989, and hold perpetrators to account, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Authorities should allow commemorations of the occasion, and release those imprisoned for having done so in the past.
“While Xi Jinping preaches openness on the world stage, his government buries the truth about the Tiananmen Massacre through silence, denial and persecution of those who mark the occasion,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. 

“Until Beijing reverses course and owns up to its past atrocities, Xi’s calls have little credibility.”
As in past years, to preempt dissent and commemoration of the Tiananmen Massacre, Chinese authorities have heightened surveillance and control of activists as June 4 draws closer. 

In May, the police in Guangzhou repeatedly harassed human rights lawyer Huang Simin and her partner, writer Li Xuewen, forcing them out of the city. 

Guangzhou police also broke up a gathering of activists at a restaurant, including Wang Aizhong, who was detained and interrogated for hours after the gathering at a police station. 

Over a dozen police officers in Shandong Province blocked a group of activists from going to retired professor Sun Wenguang’s home to attend a gathering to commemorate the Tiananmen Massacre.
Over the past year, a number of activists have been detained, charged, or sentenced for commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre. 

In March, authorities in Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital, charged Chen Bing, Fu Hailu, Luo Fuyu, and Zhang Junyong with “inciting subversion of state power” for producing and selling a liquor named “Eight Liquor Six Four,” a homophone for “89.6.4,” the numerical date of the massacre. 

In March a Chengdu court sentenced activist Chen Yunfei to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after he organized a memorial service for victims of the massacre. 

In April, Guangzhou-based activist Liu Bing was detained on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after he held up a poster in public calling for people to go to the street to protest on June 4.
While the last individual known to have been imprisoned for his involvement in the 1989 pro-democracy protests was released in October 2016, many other participants have been re-incarcerated for their continuing pro-democracy activism, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, Sichuan activists Liu Xianbin and Chen Wei, and Guangdong activist Guo Feixiong. 

Under Xi, the Chinese government has aggressively cracked down on a broad array of human rights, targeting civil society activists, further constricting freedom of expression and religion, as well as increasing ideological control.
While the Chinese government continues to ignore international and domestic calls for justice for the Tiananmen Massacre, foreign governments have adopted new measures to bring accountability for human rights violations around the world. 

In December 2016, the US Congress passed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which will allow the US to impose sanctions and deny visas to individuals credibly alleged to be responsible for human rights violations. 

In the UK, legislators will also be voting on proposals similar to the Magnitsky Act which, if passed, will enable the UK government and private entities to apply for the freezing of assets of human rights abusers around the world. 

In May 2017, the Canadian government announced that it will support a Senate bill that would expand Canadian sanctions legislation against human rights abusers, freezing their assets and denying them visas.
“New mechanisms to act against rights violators abroad are renewing hopes that one day those responsible for the Tiananmen Massacre could be held accountable,” said Richardson. 

“This should give pause to Xi and other Chinese leaders who continue to commit serious rights abuses.”

Background: Bloodshed in 1989
The Tiananmen Massacre was precipitated by the peaceful gatherings of students, workers, and others in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and other cities in April 1989, calling for freedom of expression, accountability, and an end to corruption. 

The government responded to the intensifying protests in late May 1989 by declaring martial law.

On June 3 and 4, the military opened fire and killed untold numbers of peaceful protesters and bystanders. 

In Beijing, some citizens attacked army convoys and burned vehicles in response to the military’s violence. 

Following the killings, the government implemented a national crackdown and arrested thousands for “counter-revolution” and other criminal charges, including disrupting social order and arson.
The government has never accepted responsibility for the massacre or held any officials legally accountable for the killings. 

It has been unwilling to conduct an investigation into the events or release data on those who were killed, injured, forcibly disappeared, or imprisoned. 

The nongovernmental organization Tiananmen Mothers, consisting mostly of family members of those killed, has established the details of 202 people who were killed during the suppression of the movement in Beijing and other cities. 

During the 28 years since the massacre, many members of the Tiananmen Mothers as well as participants who had been imprisoned – including Yu Zhijian, who served 12 years in prison for throwing ink onto Mao Zedong’s portrait at in Tiananmen Square – have passed away without seeing justice.
Human Rights Watch urges the Chinese government to mark the 28th anniversary of June 4, 1989, by addressing the human rights violations pertaining to the event. 

Specifically, the government should:

• Respect the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and cease the harassment and arbitrary detention of individuals who challenge the official account of June 4;
• Meet with and apologize to members of the Tiananmen Mothers, publish the names of all who died, and appropriately compensate the families of the victims;
• Permit an independent public inquiry into June 4, and promptly release its findings and conclusions to the public;
• Allow the unimpeded return of Chinese citizens exiled due to their connections to the events of 1989; and
• Investigate all government and military officials who planned or ordered the unlawful use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrators, and appropriately prosecute them.

China: EU Summit Should Make Rights A Priority

EU Needs to Deploy ‘Full Weight’ to Ease Crackdown
www.hrw.org

From left, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Chinese President Xi Jinping and European Council President Donald Tusk pose for photos before a meeting held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, on July 12, 2016.

European Union leaders should publicly and privately press China’s government to end its crackdown on human rights and immediately release all detained activists, Human Rights Watch said today in a joint letter with a dozen other nongovernmental organizations. 

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini will attend the EU-China Summit in Brussels with senior Chinese officials on June 1-2, 2017.
“The EU has pledged to ‘throw its full weight behind advocates of liberty, democracy and human rights’ and do so at the ‘highest level,’” said Lotte Leicht, EU director at Human Rights Watch. 

“EU leaders need to make good on their pledges and make human rights and the freeing of peaceful activists a top strategic priority in the EU’s relationship with China.”
The organizations noted that on various occasions, the EU has publicly decried the deteriorating human rights situation in China, expressed support for independent civil society, and urged the release of imprisoned activists. 

Yet the EU and its member states have generally failed to move beyond rhetorical approaches and used their collective leverage to forcefully press Chin – an EU strategic partner and second largest trading partner – to end its increasingly brutal crackdown on those who peacefully dissent government policies, journalists who write on sensitive issues, and lawyers who defend activists in court.
The organizations urged EU leaders to take several steps, including suspending the bilateral human rights dialogue until a meaningful exchange with the Chinese government can be established, ensuring that human rights concerns are discussed in all other EU-China meetings, and explaining steps the EU and its member states will take if China does not act to end abuses and release jailed activists.
The EU-China Summit will be held three days ahead of the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. 

The EU retains an arms embargo against China because of these mass killings and EU leaders should stress the need for a thorough, transparent investigation into the massacre, accountability for the crimes, and adequate compensation for victims and their families.
In addition to Human Rights Watch, the letter was signed by Amnesty International, China Labour Bulletin, DEMAS, FIDH, Initiatives for China, the International Campaign for Tibet, the International Service for Human Rights, Freedom House, Human Rights in China, Human Rights Without Frontiers, World Organisation Against Torture, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Threatened Peoples, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and the World Uyghur Congress.
“The EU has acknowledged that improving human rights in China is essential for the overall EU-China relationship,” Leicht said. 

 “It’s not clear whether EU leaders have the foresight and courage to push for real change with China’s leaders. A failure to do so would suggest that EU human rights pledges are window dressing aimed to make Europeans feel good about themselves – rather than a principled and consistent policy.”

Come to express anger over Xi Jinping, Hong Kong June 4 vigil organiser says

Lee Cheuk-yan says they want to reignite interest among young people in democracy in mainland China after university student unions stayed away last year
By Kimmy Chung

The organisers of the annual candlelight vigil marking the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown have called for more Hongkongers to attend and express their anger at Xi Jinping before his expected visit to the city in late June.
The organisers also hope to reignite youngsters’ passion for democracy by inviting a high school boy band to perform. 

The rise of localism has driven university student unions away from the vigil.
“It is a very important opportunity to tell Xi Jinping that Hong Kong people are very angry at what he has done in both China and Hong Kong ... The suppression of human rights in China and the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong,” Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China secretary Lee Cheuk-yan said.
“Hong Kong people know very well that the whole so-called chief executive election was fake ... and was controlled by Beijing,” he added.

Lee said the leadership election would give extra meaning to the 28th anniversary vigil this year, in addition to remembering those who sacrificed themselves for democracy in 1989.
Xi is expected to visit the city to mark the 20th anniversary of the city’s handover to China on July 1.
Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese soil where large-scale events to mark the June 4 crackdown are held. 

Support has waned in recent years as more people, especially youngsters, believe the city should focus on its own fight rather than democracy in mainland China.
The attendance last year was down to 125,000 -- the lowest since the 20th anniversary vigil in 2009, according to the organisers. 

The organisers expect around 100,000 to take part this year but refuse to predict an exact number. “Our biggest obstacle is our apathy... I think what we need to do is to reignite the passion for political reform in Hong Kong and China,” Lee said, adding that he believed Hongkongers were still passionate about the issues.
It will be the second year that university student unions will be absent from the stage. 

To represent the voice of the next generation, the organiser has invited high school boy band Boyz’ Reborn to compose a song and perform at the vigil. 

A representative of the Tiananmen Mothers will speak by video link.