Tianmen massacre victims' kin harassed by Chinese authorities

The families of the Tianmen massacre of 1989 who are seeking to commemorate the occasion are harassed by the Chinese authorities.

Sergio Restelli, writing in Insideover said the issue is still taboo in China. Around 10,000 Chinese people were killed by its own government for seeking democratic rights. Thousands of other peaceful demonstrators were injured, later hunted down and jailed.

Chinese authorities detained, questioned, and arrested the families of the victims and social activists who were planning to mark the Tiananmen tragedy anniversary.

Such suppression tactics have seen a surge since Xi Jinping took the reins of China in 2013. Every year, families especially mothers of those killed in the brutal military action in Tiananmen Square gather to seek justice for their deceased loved ones and to explain the "state-led terror and suffocation" they go through for seeking justice, said Restelli.

Yin Min, whose 19-year old son was killed in the 1989 massacre, said "It feels that there's no end in sight. We are all at ages where death can happen any day, and we'd like to see the truth revealed and justice upheld while we are still alive."

The protests which were started on April 15 were forcibly suppressed on June 4 when China's military crackdown led to a massacre of students protesting for democratic reforms in various major cities across China.

The victims of the 1989 massacre are still waiting to get justice as accountability for the tragedy was never fixed, reported Insideover.

Families and activists were kept under surveillance on the 30th anniversary of 2019. Chinese rights activist Hu Jia said the state security police followed her everywhere, even during a trek to remote mountains.

Families of the victims were followed and their telephones were monitored in order to prevent them from marking the anniversary or speaking to journalists, said Restelli.

The members of a group named 'Tiananmen Mothers' were placed under house arrest in the run-up to the 1989 movement's anniversary.

Zhang Xianling, who lost her son in the Tiananmen crackdown said, "I asked them what date they would be leaving on, and they said they didn't know... Human rights violations are so common in China."

As many as 131 'Tiananmen Mothers' published a letter in 2016 recounting their horrible ordeal while seeking justice. They said they were subjected to constant harassment, intimidation, and even false accusations by the Chinese security agencies.

"For us, family members of the victims' families, it has been 27 years of state terror and suffocation. All these actions undoubtedly desecrate the souls of those who perished in the crackdown and insult the honour of the living," read the letter.

Arrests, censorships, and surveillance are part of Jinping's "China Dream" that wants everyone to forget about the Tiananmen killings, said Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch.

"But suppressing the truth has only fuelled demands for justice and accountability," she said.

Yaqiu Wang, senior researcher on China at Human Rights Watch, said the Beijing government never paid a price at home or abroad for the Tiananmen Massacre, which emboldened state-sponsored abuses in the country.

The families of the 1989 tragedy blamed the Beijing government for ignoring their appeal seeking a resolution to the "miscarriage of justice", reported Indsideover.

( With inputs from ANI )

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