Thousands in Hong Kong mark Tiananmen crackdown

[Akasa]

Really hard to understand why some Chinese fellows are over reacting over this. We better know that it occurs at 4th June every year since 1989 due the inhuman show of superpower on a non-violent protesters. After reading some of the above posts, I can easily think of Premier Li Peng, who ordered the martial law. And PLA with tanks attacked on unarmed protesters. Really could not find any words.
Didn't quote anyone's statements as all seems to be same in a collective communist way.
BTW all of the statements in 1st post came from those who had suffered. Does not matter, how many times you had been to HK!!!!

Some mistakes in your knowledge:

1. Tanks were not used to attack people. The Tank Man is still alive and sources show that nobody was run over or fired at by tanks.

2. There were no systematic killings. Witnesses reported that troops did not fire directly into crowds; instead, they were armed with anti riot equipment.

3. All deaths (or most deaths) were result of riots and clashes with police, not so called "massacres". Police tried to keep peace and stop the riot, not to kill people.

4. Some students even held back other students from attacking the police. The students who started the riot damaged property and laid siege to Beijing. Any country would deploy police in this kind of situation.

 

[ephone]

If they are really that desperate for democracy, why did not they show up in hundreds of thousands during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s against the U.K. appointed government there??? Weren't the governors and majority of high offices occupied by British? Why did not they ask for direct election during those 40 years or even before???

HONG KONG: Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong on Saturday marked the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as China defies international condemnation with an ongoing roundup of political dissidents.

A sea of people, mostly clad in black as a sign of mourning, held up candles and sang solemn songs -- some with teary eyes -- as they filled an area the size of six football fields at the Victoria Park, the only commemoration on Chinese soil.

Organisers said 150,000 people had converged on park, with many others still struggling to make their way through the crowds to the site.

"I am here with a heavy heart, it is very emotional for me," Gladys Liu, a 48-year-old mother-of-two told AFP.

"I still remember the scenes -- how the army tanks were sent in to break up the student-led protests. I was following the news closely, I never thought it would turn so violent," said Liu, who turned up with her son, 14, and nine-year-old daughter.

"I want my children to know what happened. This is not something that can be learned in school," she added.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are believed to have died when the government sent in tanks and soldiers to clear Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989, bringing a violent end to six weeks of pro-democracy protests.

An official verdict after the protests called them a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" although the wording has since been softened.

"I want to know the truth of June 4," said 17-year-old student Melissa Tang, who was among many youngsters at the vigil, as she raised candle in the air.

"Maybe we don't have the full picture of what happened but the students at the 1989 protests deserve our respect," said Tang, who was with a group of classmates.

Wang Dan, a key leader of the 1989 protests, and Ding Zilin, spokeswoman of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group representing families of the victims, addressed the crowd in Hong Kong through a pre-recorded video message from Taiwan and China respectively.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but retains a semi-autonomous status with civil liberties -- including the right to protest -- not enjoyed in mainland China.

In Beijing, where the Tiananmen protests remain a taboo topic, thousands of Chinese and foreign tourists flocked to the giant square on Saturday amid a heavy police presence, but many shied away from answering questions on the incident.

China attempts to block any public discussion or remembrance of the events by hiding away key dissidents in the run-up to June 4 each year, taking them into custody or placing them under house arrest, friends and activists say.

Rights groups including New York-based Human Rights Watch have repeated calls for China to be held accountable for its past and present actions, but Beijing reiterated its position that the matter was closed.

"As for the political turbulence that took place in the last century in the late 1980s, the Communist Party and government have already made a conclusion," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Thursday.

Since mid-February, as protests spread across the Arab world leading to the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, Chinese authorities have detained dozens of lawyers, activists and dissidents in an ongoing clampdown.

The vigil comes after Chinese police for the first time raised the possibility of compensation for those killed, according to Tiananmen Mothers.

The group said in an annual open letter this week that police have twice met relatives of one victim beginning in February, in a possible sign that Beijing is changing its view on the June 4 crackdown.

The letter said, however, that police did not discuss a formal apology for the killings or a public account of who ordered the shootings -- two of the group's long-standing demands.

The Hong Kong vigil was preceded by an annual Tiananmen march last Sunday joined by some 1,000 people, and a series of events including a 64-hour hunger strike on the eve of the anniversary to honour those who died.

Pro-democracy supporters also took out a full-page advertisement in the popular Chinese-language Apple Daily Saturday to call for justice for the Tiananmen victims and the immediate release of Chinese political dissidents.HONG KONG: Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong on Saturday marked the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as China defies international condemnation with an ongoing roundup of political dissidents.

A sea of people, mostly clad in black as a sign of mourning, held up candles and sang solemn songs -- some with teary eyes -- as they filled an area the size of six football fields at the Victoria Park, the only commemoration on Chinese soil.

Organisers said 150,000 people had converged on park, with many others still struggling to make their way through the crowds to the site.

"I am here with a heavy heart, it is very emotional for me," Gladys Liu, a 48-year-old mother-of-two told AFP.

"I still remember the scenes -- how the army tanks were sent in to break up the student-led protests. I was following the news closely, I never thought it would turn so violent," said Liu, who turned up with her son, 14, and nine-year-old daughter.

"I want my children to know what happened. This is not something that can be learned in school," she added.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are believed to have died when the government sent in tanks and soldiers to clear Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989, bringing a violent end to six weeks of pro-democracy protests.

An official verdict after the protests called them a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" although the wording has since been softened.

"I want to know the truth of June 4," said 17-year-old student Melissa Tang, who was among many youngsters at the vigil, as she raised candle in the air.

"Maybe we don't have the full picture of what happened but the students at the 1989 protests deserve our respect," said Tang, who was with a group of classmates.

Wang Dan, a key leader of the 1989 protests, and Ding Zilin, spokeswoman of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group representing families of the victims, addressed the crowd in Hong Kong through a pre-recorded video message from Taiwan and China respectively.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but retains a semi-autonomous status with civil liberties -- including the right to protest -- not enjoyed in mainland China.

In Beijing, where the Tiananmen protests remain a taboo topic, thousands of Chinese and foreign tourists flocked to the giant square on Saturday amid a heavy police presence, but many shied away from answering questions on the incident.

China attempts to block any public discussion or remembrance of the events by hiding away key dissidents in the run-up to June 4 each year, taking them into custody or placing them under house arrest, friends and activists say.

Rights groups including New York-based Human Rights Watch have repeated calls for China to be held accountable for its past and present actions, but Beijing reiterated its position that the matter was closed.

"As for the political turbulence that took place in the last century in the late 1980s, the Communist Party and government have already made a conclusion," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Thursday.

Since mid-February, as protests spread across the Arab world leading to the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, Chinese authorities have detained dozens of lawyers, activists and dissidents in an ongoing clampdown.

The vigil comes after Chinese police for the first time raised the possibility of compensation for those killed, according to Tiananmen Mothers.

The group said in an annual open letter this week that police have twice met relatives of one victim beginning in February, in a possible sign that Beijing is changing its view on the June 4 crackdown.

The letter said, however, that police did not discuss a formal apology for the killings or a public account of who ordered the shootings -- two of the group's long-standing demands.

The Hong Kong vigil was preceded by an annual Tiananmen march last Sunday joined by some 1,000 people, and a series of events including a 64-hour hunger strike on the eve of the anniversary to honour those who died.

Pro-democracy supporters also took out a full-page advertisement in the popular Chinese-language Apple Daily Saturday to call for justice for the Tiananmen victims and the immediate release of Chinese political dissidents.


Hi Moderators!

Please merge this thread to existing one. I didn't had a look for a similar thread.

My mistake!

 

[ephone]

Just for some protests in Kent State, U.S. national guards had already shoot students dead.

You occupied the capital and blocked the country from running, what do you expect in return???

Some mistakes in your knowledge:

1. Tanks were not used to attack people. The Tank Man is still alive and sources show that nobody was run over or fired at by tanks.

2. There were no systematic killings. Witnesses reported that troops did not fire directly into crowds; instead, they were armed with anti riot equipment.

3. All deaths (or most deaths) were result of riots and clashes with police, not so called "massacres". Police tried to keep peace and stop the riot, not to kill people.

4. Some students even held back other students from attacking the police. The students who started the riot damaged property and laid siege to Beijing. Any country would deploy police in this kind of situation.

 

[rcrmj]

Just for some protests in Kent State, U.S. national guards had already shoot students dead.

You occupied the capital and blocked the country from running, what do you expect in return???

this is how the word hypocrite defined, like the funny poster, any indians been killed by riot police force or army they'd say they were proctecting country's stability and to put social order in place, but when those riots in China let it be those tibetan or Uyghur terriosts were crashed down by police or PLA, they'd say chinese government pointing guns at its civilians and commited 'massacres'``

as long as the wannabe western media in control of indian's mind, we can blame them to put up hypocretic news like this to show their level of gullibility`

 

[Akasa]

If they are really that desperate for democracy, why did not they show up in hundreds of thousands during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s against the U.K. appointed government there??? Weren't the governors and majority of high offices occupied by British? Why did not they ask for direct election during those 40 years or even before???

The 1967 Hong Kong riots were actually anti-British and pro-Chinese.

---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------

Just for some protests in Kent State, U.S. national guards had already shoot students dead.

You occupied the capital and blocked the country from running, what do you expect in return???

That was what I said.

 

[WuMaoCleverbot]

Some mistakes in your knowledge:

1. Tanks were not used to attack people. The Tank Man is still alive and sources show that nobody was run over or fired at by tanks.

2. There were no systematic killings. Witnesses reported that troops did not fire directly into crowds; instead, they were armed with anti riot equipment.

3. All deaths (or most deaths) were result of riots and clashes with police, not so called "massacres". Police tried to keep peace and stop the riot, not to kill people.

4. Some students even held back other students from attacking the police. The students who started the riot damaged property and laid siege to Beijing. Any country would deploy police in this kind of situation.

Just found this:

The Tiananmen Square Massacre In Pictures


Here are more pictures:

 

[WuMaoCleverbot]

Here's the picture of the famous Tankman:

I think the video was taken after the Tiananmen Square massacre...to be used as CCP's propaganda.

 

[Beast]

Really hard to understand why some Chinese fellows are over reacting over this. We better know that it occurs at 4th June every year since 1989 due the inhuman show of superpower on a non-violent protesters. After reading some of the above posts, I can easily think of Premier Li Peng, who ordered the martial law. And PLA with tanks attacked on unarmed protesters. Really could not find any words.
Didn't quote anyone's statements as all seems to be same in a collective communist way.
BTW all of the statements in 1st post came from those who had suffered. Does not matter, how many times you had been to HK!!!!

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/he...rowning-in-its-own-excreta/article3524150.ece

Sixty per cent of the "global total" who do not have access to toilets live in India, and hence are forced to defecate in the open. In actual numbers, sixty per cent translates to 626 million. This makes India the number one country in the world where open defecation is practised. Indonesia with 63 million is a far second!

At 949 million in 2010 worldwide, vast majority of people practising open defecation live in rural areas. Though the number of rural people practising open defecation has reduced by 234 million in 2010 than in 1990, “those that continue to do so tend to be concentrated in a few countries, including India,” notes the 2012 update report of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

For instance, of the 2.4 lakh gram panchayats in the country, only a mere 24,000 are completely free of open defecation.

More than half of the 2.5 billion people without improved sanitation live in India or China. The high figure prevails even as four out of 10 people who have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990 live in these two countries.

“Rapidly-modernising India is drowning in its own excreta,” notes the New Delhi-based Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment in a Comment piece published on June 14 in Nature.

The only silver lining is the determination with which Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh intends to rid the country of open defecation within a decade. His endeavour got a shot in the arm recently when the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs increased the amount of money to be spent for household toilets in rural areas from Rs. 4,600 to Rs.10,000.

But increased spending alone will in no way turn out to be a magic bullet in solving the malaise of open defecation. Numerous examples from other countries serve as testimony to this. Bringing about a change in mindset is the paramount need.

Awareness of the link between open defection and diseases like diarrhoea will in one way change the way people defecate. After all, almost 10 per cent of all communicable diseases are linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation. According to WHO, open defecation is the “riskiest sanitation practice of all.”

According to the global health body, compared with 1990, more than two billion people have access to improved drinking water sources. Thus the Millennium Development Goal's drinking water target has been reached — “over 2 billion people have gained access to improved water sources from 1990 to 2010, and the proportion of the global population still using unimproved sources is estimated at only 11 per cent.”

The fine print

But the fine print reveals the rider. WHO does not have the critical information about the safety of the drinking water, though. Since testing for microbial and chemical parameters to designate drinking waters as safe is expensive, WHO used a proxy indicator — measuring the proportion of the population using drinking water sources that supposedly are protected from contamination, particularly from faecal matter.

But access to drinking sources can hardly be a true indicator, as is the case in India. “Leaking and incomplete sewage systems contaminate rivers and lakes, causing diseases like cholera,” notes Nature. “Around 97 million Indians do not have access to clean drinking water.” The problem arises due to contamination of drinking water by leaked sewage. Sewage inevitably pollutes water bodies, both surface and aquifers.

According to the Comment, only a few facilities exist in the country to treat waste water. “Officially, the country has the capacity to treat 30 per cent of its waste water.” But in reality it is far less at “20 per cent.”

While ridding open defecation will go a long way in improving sanitation and reducing disease outbreaks, Sunita Narain makes a strong case for larger investments in sewage systems and effective use of water. The need for newer technologies cannot be ignored.

Current technologies use “large amounts of water to transport small amounts of excreta through expensive pipes to costly treatment plants, she states. This is “unworkable and unaffordable,” especially considering the fact that cities are growing at a rapid pace and infrastructure is always lagging behind.

Just found this:

The Tiananmen Square Massacre In Pictures


Here are more pictures:

I just found this also!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/22/philippines-massacre-families-waiting-justice

It was one of the bloodiest incidents in the Philippines' recent history, and the largest mass murder of journalists anywhere in the world. Fifty-seven people were killed when an eight-vehicle convoy carrying journalists, family members and supporters of a Filipino politician was ambushed on a stretch of rural highway in southern Maguindanao on 23 November 2009.

Men with automatic rifles and machetes shot, raped and beheaded many of the passengers, before dumping them and the vehicles in vast mass graves. Three years later, the victims' families are still waiting for justice.

Nearly 200 people – among them soldiers, police, civilian militiamen and prominent local politicians – have been charged with murder. But the trial, which since 2010 has been bogged down by bail proceedings, has yet to produce a single conviction.

The ambush was an attempt to derail the candidacy of Esmael Mangudadatu, a local mayor who was running for governor against a member of the powerful Ampatuan clan. Mangudadatu, sensing danger, was not part of the convoy, but 31 journalists were – making the ambush the most deadly single attack on the press ever, according to the International Crisis Group.

Several witnesses have been killed, and nearly half of those charged with murder are still on the run. Police suspect some of them may have sought refuge with the Islamist rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It is no surprise that many of the victims' families still live in fear.

Some, like Grace Morales, whose husband and sister were among those killed, have reported repeated visits to their homes by unidentified men. Even Mangudadatu, now governor, who lost his wife and two sisters in the ambush, closely watches his security and recently said he was unable to attend scheduled memorial services this Friday because of safety concerns.

Despite widespread outrage about the massacre, the Ampatuans still enjoy high positions of power. According to Maguindanao: The Quest for Justice, a documentary about the massacre made by the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism, of the 10 Ampatuans linked to the ambush who ran in elections just one year later, eight won – five after campaigning while in hiding and another three while in jail.

The Ampatuans have seemingly wielded their power in other ways too. Last week the supreme court reversed its decision to allow live media coverage of the trial, meaning victims' families – many too poor to attend court proceedings in Manila – will not be able to watch the case.

According to family testimony, it also appears that emissaries acting on behalf of the Ampatuan clan have offered settlements of 25m pesos (£381,500), a huge sum in a region where 40% of the population lives on a dollar a day.

To date, however, all of the families have turned the money down, according to Morales, who heads the lobbying group Justice Now. "Many of [us] find it difficult to sustain any kind of livelihood, [as] most of those who died were breadwinners … [But] we want justice for the massacre and I think [that] is more important than the amount," she said.

The Philippines is an exceptionally media-rich country, boasting 500 newspapers and 650 broadcast stations, but Melinda Quintos de Jesus, of the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), said the country's journalists were "stunningly vulnerable" to attack and threat.

The weak rule of law, poor forensic capacity, limited protection system and prevailing culture of violence means that political warlords like the Ampatuans, local government officials who dislike criticism, and businessmen using guns for hire seemingly rule with impunity.

"Many cases don't ever get to court and the killers go unpunished and unapprehended, yet this is one of the strongest and oldest democratic countries in south-east Asia," Quintos de Jesus said.

According to CMFR figures, 128 Filipino journalists have been killed since 1986, most of them under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration, with only 10 convictions in that time. A further 21 have been killed since Benigno Aquino assumed power in February 2011, the most recent a radio reporter in September.

The high number of killings makes the Philippines the third most dangerous country in the world for journalists, behind Iraq and Somalia. Quintos de Jesus said journalists did not take the kind of precautions they should, and most treated death threats "like having a kind of Purple Heart".

 

[jhungary]

Not saying the June 4 Tiananmen Square incident should ever be forget but it's some 20 years now, the same CCP government has change a lot since then, no point keep compare a regime then and the regime now.

As for people asking here what is the different between Kent States and Tiananmen Square?

For starter, we all know Kent States, it's studied in the History book all over the world, US admit the incident even have a senate hearing on it. However, Chinese government officially still deny the incident ever happened, even thought we all know what had been going on those 2 nights and 1 day.

 

[OrionHunter]

China attempts to block any public discussion or remembrance of the events by hiding away key dissidents in the run-up to June 4 each year, taking them into custody or placing them under house arrest, friends and activists say.

Human rights violations galore, coupled with zero democracy and tolerance is what China is all about! As they say, one needs to take permission of the Communist Party even if one wants to fart!!

 

[Beast]

Human rights violations galore, coupled with zero democracy and tolerance is what China is all about! As they say, one needs to take permission of the Communist Party even if one wants to fart!!

Its better than India who most still can't access to public toilet. Human without access for this basic neccessity are even worst than barbaric.

China respect human right better than Indian. Just ask any of the Chinese ladies in China. In india with the fake demoncracy, indian girls are treated with no respect. Rape and abuse of ladies are common. What kind of freedom India has? Stop your BS. Do you want me to bring up the rape cases to shame you all?

 

[WuMaoCleverbot]

http://www.chinauncensored.com/index.php/real-china/227-tianamen-massacre-photos-on-21st-anniversary

 

[WarMonger]

Hong Kong deserves freedom from CCP.

 

[Fsjal]

This is disgusting. Poor Chinese members here, they believe what their government says.

Anyway, China needs room for democracy. China can't be democratic already. Needs 10 years for development of democracy. Also, the CCP has changed. Deng is dead, Xi is president. Let us move on.

 

[OrionHunter]

China respect human right better than Indian.

A couple o' smileys are worth a thousand words!