By Abdi Abdalla
Human rights activists in London commemorated 35 years since the brutal crackdown of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, as Hong Kong police arrested several people in connection with Facebook posts made ahead of the anniversary of 4th June 1989.
A coalition of groups, including Amnesty International and the Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor, rallied at Parliament Square yesterday, days after Hong Kong police arrested seven people for publishing messages with seditious intent ahead of a “sensitive date” under the city’s new national security law, known as Article 23.
The posts were made on a page named “Chow Hang-tung Club” after the already jailed Chow Hang-tung, a lawyer and activist, and former co-chair of the organisation that used to organise annual vigils commemorating Tiananmen until they were banned in 2020.
Chow was arrested in prison last week and Hong Kong police confirmed today that an eighth person has been arrested.
Protesters held placards calling for Chow’s release yesterday and expressed fears over the fate of Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The crowd also chanted “Stop repression of Tibetans and Uyghurs,” “human rights are universal,” and “June 4th, we will never forget” while stressing the need for unity among different ethnic groups in China.
Dawa Tsering, a Tibetan activist who spoke at the event, said Tiananmen was preceded by the oppression of Tibet. “Exactly the same thing happened in 1959 in my country,” he said, referring to the suppression of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising.
Sarah Brooks, China director at Amnesty International, said that 35 years is “a really long time, a long time for people to not know what happened to their loved ones.”
Brooks added Tiananmen is still relevant to the current struggle for democratic rights in China. “Tiananmen inspires activism now…in Hong Kong in the 2019 protests…in Shanghai or Beijing in 2022, when the White Paper protests broke out,” she said.
Another speaker, Daniel York Loh, a British-Singaporean writer and actor, said that 1989 was a “time where people in China dared to dream of an alternative. There was a chance that China could have gone a different way, and everything changed on June the 4th 1989.”
Events are being held throughout June to commemorate this year’s anniversary.
Feature Image: Human rights protestors in London. Photo credit: Abdi Abdalla.