In advance of the 20th anniversary of the massacre of protesters around Tiananmen Square, a group of family members of those killed have issued a letter demanding an investigation into the killings and official naming of the dead. From the International Herald Tribune:
The call came from the “Tiananmen Mothers” in a petition issued on Friday that carried 127 names of people who claimed their children or family members were victims of the June 4 quelling of the pro-democracy protests that challenged Communist Party power in 1989.
The group urged the government to investigate the military crackdown, name all the dead, compensate their families and punish “those responsible for the killings.”
“It was nothing short of an unconscionable atrocity,” the group said in the petition issued through Human Rights in China, a New York-based advocacy group.
Read more about June 4th, via CDT.
