Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th 1989

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Pro-democracy activist Chow Hang Tung has been arrested by Hong Kong police on the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Ms Chow is vice chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance which organises annual vigils for victims of Beijing's deadly crackdown on democracy protesters.

She has been arrested for promoting unauthorised assembly.

It comes as Hong Kong has banned the vigil for the second year running, citing coronavirus restrictions.

Police have closed off Victoria Park, where citizens usually gather each year to mark the anniversary. Thousands of officers have been placed on standby to stop any attempt to hold the event. But this year, authorities in Macau also banned the vigil for the second year in a row, saying it would violate local criminal laws.

However, Ms Chow continued to call on residents to commemorate the anniversary in their own ways.

"Turn on the lights wherever you are - whether on your phone, candles or electronic candles," she had posted on Facebook a day before her arrest.

Some lit candles or held their phone lights aloft at 20:00 local time (12:00 GMT) to mark the anniversary. Officers dispersed groups and there were reports of one arrest in Mong Kok district.
Ms Chow was arrested early in the morning outside her office by officers in plain clothes, according to reports.

She was placed in a black saloon car and driven away, the AFP news agency said.

Speaking to the BBC ahead of her arrest, Ms Chow, who is also a lawyer and a human rights activist, said she was prepared for the inevitable.

"I am prepared to be arrested. This is how Hong Kong is now. If you fight for democracy under an authoritarian regime, being arrested is unavoidable. Let it come. I am willing to pay the price for fighting for democracy," she said.

Separately on Friday, police arrested a 20-year-old delivery man, identified only by his surname Cheung, "promoting and announcing unauthorised assembly" - the same charge Ms Chow faces.

Police called both their actions "extremely irresponsible".

Huge crowds usually gather in Hong Kong's Victoria Park each year to mark the anniversary of Chinese troops crushing peaceful democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989.

There was international condemnation after troops and tanks opened fire on protesters in Beijing - estimates of the dead vary from a few hundred to several thousand.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57353803

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th 1989

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Taiwan will never forget China's Tiananmen crackdown, says president
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ta ... ar-AAKGWjY
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's people will never forget China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square 32 years ago and will stick with their faith in democracy, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday.
Tsai Ing-wen standing in front of a flower: Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at The Third Wednesday Club, a high-profile private industry trade body in Taipei © Reuters/ANN WANG Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at The Third Wednesday Club, a high-profile private industry trade body in Taipei

Taiwan tends to use the Tiananmen Square anniversary to criticise China and urge it to face up to what it did, to Beijing's repeated annoyance. China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be taken by force if necessary.

Friday marks 32 years since Chinese troops opened fire to end the student-led unrest in and around the square. Chinese authorities ban any public commemoration of the event on the mainland.

Writing on her Facebook page, Tsai said Taiwan's people would not forget what had happened.

"I believe for all Taiwanese who are proud of their freedom and democracy, they will never forget about this day and will firmly stick with their faith, unshaken by challenges," she said.

"We will also not forget about the young people who sacrificed themselves on Tiananmen Square on this day 32 years ago, and that year after year, friends in Hong Kong who always mourn June 4 with candlelight."
in other news:
China blasts Taiwan's ruling party for rejecting Chinese vaccines
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News ... 622824403/
June 4 (UPI) -- China condemned Taiwan for refusing Chinese COVID-19 vaccines on the same day the island nation accepted 1.24 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from Japan.
More proof, if any were needed, that Taiwan and China may share language and cultural ties but are indeed separate entities when it comes to governance. Chinese people are by and large poor. Most are happy if the government provides conditions that guarantee food and shelter and a modicum of material bobbles. Taiwanese accustomed to the basic necessities of life are more interested in questions of life's meaning and personal expression. The same could be said of residents who grew up in Hong Kong, highly educated yet experiencing decades of deepening economic inequities.

Personally, I did a one day fast to commemorate the event. 32 years ago, my father and grandmother happened to be in Bejing when the crackdown started. All foreign passport holders were held in their hotel rooms for 48 hours, not allowed out to see the demonstration happening outside. When they were released to travel from the capital to the countryside, my father said he saw bullet holes in buildings as they rounded Tianamen Square on the way to the train station. We in the States, sitting glued to our TV screens, saw more of what was happening in Tianamen Square that day than my father or grandmother.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th 1989

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Bisbee wrote: Fri Jun 04, 2021 3:46 pm Taiwan will never forget China's Tiananmen crackdown, says president
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ta ... ar-AAKGWjY

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's people will never forget China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square 32 years ago and will stick with their faith in democracy, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday.
Tsai Ing-wen standing in front of a flower: Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at The Third Wednesday Club, a high-profile private industry trade body in Taipei © Reuters/ANN WANG Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at The Third Wednesday Club, a high-profile private industry trade body in Taipei

Taiwan tends to use the Tiananmen Square anniversary to criticise China and urge it to face up to what it did, to Beijing's repeated annoyance. China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be taken by force if necessary.

Friday marks 32 years since Chinese troops opened fire to end the student-led unrest in and around the square. Chinese authorities ban any public commemoration of the event on the mainland.

Writing on her Facebook page, Tsai said Taiwan's people would not forget what had happened.

"I believe for all Taiwanese who are proud of their freedom and democracy, they will never forget about this day and will firmly stick with their faith, unshaken by challenges," she said.

"We will also not forget about the young people who sacrificed themselves on Tiananmen Square on this day 32 years ago, and that year after year, friends in Hong Kong who always mourn June 4 with candlelight."
in other news:
China blasts Taiwan's ruling party for rejecting Chinese vaccines
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News ... 622824403/
June 4 (UPI) -- China condemned Taiwan for refusing Chinese COVID-19 vaccines on the same day the island nation accepted 1.24 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from Japan.
More proof, if any were needed, that Taiwan and China may share language and cultural ties but are indeed separate entities when it comes to governance. Chinese people are by and large poor. Most are happy if the government provides conditions that guarantee food and shelter and a modicum of material bobbles. Taiwanese accustomed to the basic necessities of life are more interested in questions of life's meaning and personal expression. The same could be said of residents who grew up in Hong Kong, highly educated yet experiencing decades of deepening economic inequities.

I remember watching on TV the Chinese troops enter the Square, IIRC the troops they brought in were from rural areas of China soldiers with no connection to Beijing. 32 years later and we still haven't forgotten. We don't know how many people died in the Tiananmen Massacre, estimates run into the thousands.

The Chinese people were lied to by Mao and Xi, the CCP is not out to bring citizens out of poverty, it's out to enrich party officials and their families. Taiwan was smart to order the AZ vaccine, we still don't have verifiable data on the Chinese vaccines, WHO approved them but it looks like only 50% efficacy rate. Biden is releasing US stockpiles so Taiwan could get more from the US.

Yes Taiwan like Hong Kong benefited from education, finance and high tech. Tech and tech products are what I think of when I hear the name Taiwan - ASUS computers and smartphones and much more. Wish Taiwan got rid of ROC and just declared itself a separate nation and that Britain earlier has spun off Hong Kong as an independent country without the New Territories.

Biden yesterday issued another Executive Order banning investment in a list of Chinese companies. The Pentagon also has a list of Chinese companies that are banned from bidding on contracts and Huawei, ZTE and until recently Xiaomi smartphones can't be sold in exchanges or issued to military personnel.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th 1989

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Famed 'Tank Man' photo vanishes from Microsoft's Bing search engine — even outside China


Searches for the famous Tiananmen Square "Tank Man" protest photo came up empty on Microsoft search engine Bing on Friday, raising censorship concerns on the anniversary of the deadly crackdown.

The award-winning photo from 1989 was not served up in image or video searches using Bing even outside China, a country known for strictly controlling what is available online.

"This is due to an accidental human error and we are actively working to resolve this," a Microsoft spokesman said in response to an AFP inquiry prompted by US press reports.

Meanwhile, searches for Tank Man using Google, which has some 92 percent of the global market for online queries according to Statcounter, turned up an assortment of pictures along with the iconic one by photographer Charlie Cole and others.

Google search is not offered in China, where censors have purged Tank Man from the internet. Baidu is the dominant search engine in China.

The Tank Man photo shows a lone protester in a white shirt blocking the path of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.

Friday marked the anniversary of Chinese troops crushing peaceful democracy protests in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Hundreds were killed in the crackdown, by some estimates more than 1,000.

In mainland China, the Tiananmen anniversary is usually marked by an increase in online censorship and the square in Beijing placed under tight security.
https://www.rawstory.com/tank-man-china-censorship/

I wonder how may photos have disappeared in our archives to "protect" the truth?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th 1989

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The United States will donate 750,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan as part of the country’s plan to share shots globally, offering a much-needed boost to the island’s fight against the pandemic.

Taiwan is dealing with a spike in domestic cases but has been affected, like many places, by global vaccines shortages. It has also claimed that China is hindering its attempts to secure doses internationally.

Only around 3% of Taiwan’s 23.5 million people have been vaccinated, with most getting only the first shot of two needed.

The donation was announced by US senator Tammy Duckworth on Sunday, speaking at Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport after arriving on a brief visit with fellow senators Dan Sullivan and Christopher Coons.

“It was critical to the United States that Taiwan be included in the first group to receive vaccines because we recognise your urgent need and we value this partnership,” she said at a news conference.

“We are here as friends, because we know that Taiwan is experiencing a challenging time right now, which was why it was especially important for the three of us to be here in a bipartisan way.”

Standing by Duckworth’s side, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, thanked the US for the donation and strong message of support from the senators’ visit.

“While we are doing our best to import vaccines, we must overcome obstacles to ensure that these life-saving medicines are delivered free from trouble from Beijing,” he said.

China has offered Taiwan Chinese-made vaccines, but the government has repeatedly expressed concern about their safety, and in any case cannot import them without changing Taiwanese law, which bans their import.
The Thai-born Duckworth said the American donation also reflects gratitude for Taiwan’s support for the US, as Taiwan donated personal protective equipment and other supplies to the US in the early days of the pandemic.

The senators, who arrived on a US air force freighter rather than a private jet, will also meet president Tsai Ing-wen to discuss security and other issues. Sullivan, a Republican, is a member of the armed services committee, and Coons is a member of the foreign relations committee.

On Friday, Japan delivered to Taiwan 1.24m doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for free, in a gesture that more than doubled the amount of shots the island has received to date.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ai-ing-wen
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th 1989

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bigbass4me wrote:https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/05/19 ... 611553600/ so Reagan sent US Navy over to affirm their right to murder protesters sound familiar with republican legislation nowadays


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
The date would indicate that Reagan was not the President.

"In every generation there are those who want to rule well - but they mean to rule. They promise to be good masters - but they mean to be masters." — Daniel Webster

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