33rd anniversary of 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre: Student activists stage protests
5 June, 2022 | Pravina Srivastava
To mark the 33rd anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square massacre, Students for Free Tibet (SFT) has organized a "photo action" demonstration
To mark the 33rd anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre, Students for Free Tibet (SFT) has organized a “photo action” demonstration.
The SFT activists’ action at Dharamshala’s Mainsquare, Mcleod Ganj, was a reenactment of Tankman’s act of defiance following the Tiananmen Square slaughter.
Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the 1989 Beijing massacre, according to Tenzin Pasang, SFT’s programme coordinator. As a result, we’ve come to show our support for them. We are simply commemorating and recalling the day when China slaughtered all protestors demanding freedom of speech and the press.”
“The tank behind me and the man, the tankman, this reflects the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989,” said Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan activist.
This was the year when the Chinese people rose up against the government, seeking freedom and democracy, but the Chinese government retaliated with military force and trembling on Chinese students and labourers, and the situation in China has not improved since then.
“As Tibetans, we stand in solidarity with the Chinese people in their quest for freedom and democracy in their country, as well as Tibet’s independence from China,” he stated.
China’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989, when Chinese troops opened fire on their own people, is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Meanwhile, China is determined to erase memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and has outlawed public commemorations of the country’s most heinous act of state tyranny on the 33rd anniversary.
Anyone who expresses public disagreement or remonstration, or organizes memorial ceremonies on the date, shall be prosecuted under the harsh National Security Law.
This year’s “June 4” – as the Tiananmen Square Vigil is called in Hong Kong – will be the first time the city will be deafeningly still, with no protests or commemorations. That will mark the start of a new chapter of CCP hostility toward the island, which played a key role in organizing the escape of the Tiananmen Square activists who survived the 1989 slaughter.