Today, 4 June, marks the the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
“30 years ago, the Beijing state and party leadership ended the Chinese democracy movement by using 150,000 soldiers against its own population. The death toll from the Tiananmen massacre has never been reliably determined, but was probably in the thousands,” commented the co-chairs of the European Green Party Reinhard Bütikofer and Monica Frassoni.
“The brutal military operation on the 4th of June, 1989 in Tiananmen square in Beijing remains till this day a particularly ugly scar on the face of China. The Chinese Minister of Defense recently justified the 4th of June suppression by saying that this laid the foundation for China’s economic boom in the following years. This cynicism does nothing to reveal the truth and only underlines the continued suppression of information about the massacre. The fight for democracy is the common heritage of humankind. China’s leadership may fear it, but it will eventually catch up with them,” they added.
