From VOA News, via Digital Chosunilbo:
An international rights group says the legacy of the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators nearly two decades ago threatens to eclipse China’s efforts to improve its image in the run up to the 2008 Olympics.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Friday that the Chinese government has failed to account for the killings of 2,000 civilians in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 and in other Chinese cities.
It called on China to stop labeling the protests a “counterrevolutionary rebellion” and stop imprisoning survivors and others who have demanded state accountability. [Full Text]
See also the Human Rights Watch press release:
China’s total failure to account for the massacre of June 4, 1989 casts a pall on its efforts to project a new image and continues to spawn more abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.
Eighteen years after Chinese government troops initiated a massacre of an estimated 2,000 unarmed citizens in and around Tiananmen Square and other Chinese cities on and after June 4, the Chinese government has wholly failed to account for those killings and bring justice to the victims. Instead, the government continues to harass the survivors, their families and those who dare to challenge the official whitewash of the events at Tiananmen Square.
“In the 14 months leading up to the Beijing Olympics , the Chinese Communist Party wants to be seen as a modern, sophisticated nation, one governed by the rule of law,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch . “But the image the world should not forget is that of a courageous individual facing down a column of tanks, as his fate and that of thousands of other protestors remain unresolved.” [Full Text]
See also “Tiananmen 16 Years Later” from Human Rights Watch.
