HONG KONG (AP) — U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged China to disclose the details of people killed, detained or missing during…
HONG KONG (AP) — U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged China to disclose the details of people killed, detained or missing during the Chinese military’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square 29 years ago.
Pompeo marked Monday’s anniversary of the suppression of demonstrations on June 4,1989, saying: « We remember the tragic loss of innocent lives. »
Hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed protesters and onlookers were killed late on June 3 and the early hours of June 4,1989, after China’s Communist leaders ordered the military to retake Tiananmen Square from the student-led demonstrators.
The topic remains taboo in mainland China and any form of commemoration, whether public or private, is banned. In Hong Kong, however, tens of thousands of people gather every year in Victoria Park on the evening of June 4 to remember the victims in the only large-scale public commemoration held on Chinese soil.
Organizers of this year’s vigil estimated 150,000 people attended, but Hong Kong police put the figure at 17,000.
Speakers in the park Monday night called for an « end to one-party dictatorship » despite warnings from pro-Beijing officials of potential repercussions.
Albert Ho, chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the organizer of the vigil, said people in semiautonomous Hong Kong enjoyed the right to advocate for more political rights.
« When we are aspiring to establishing a truly democratic China, we all think a necessary condition is an end to one-party dictatorship, » Ho told the crowd.
