Initiatives for China declares 2011-2012 to be the Year of Chinese Citizens Human Rights Action in the United Nations
Washington, DC
June 7, 2011
By: Laura Butera
Evoking images of the June 4 1989 massacre in which the Chinese army killed and injured thousands of unarmed civilians and university students in a merciless show of excessive force, protesters at Saturday’s rally in New York called on the United Nations to stand up to the Chinese government and to hold it accountable for crimes and human rights abuses committed against its own citizens.
As Yang Jianli, President of Initiatives for China which organized the rally, explained “the events of June 4th, 1989 were not a one-time event. In the twenty-two years since the Tiananmen massacre, China has never stopped violating the human rights of its citizens. It has never lacked for prisoners of conscience in its jails.”
Dr Yang went on to announce that “From today, June 4, 2011 to June 4, 2012 will be the year of Chinese Citizens’ Human Rights Action in the UN.”
An open letter to the U.N. was read on stage in both Chinese and English, urging U.N. officials to regard China’s ongoing human rights abuses as crimes to be investigated under international law. The letter garnered much applause throughout the dual reading and gained hundreds of additional signatures for its presentation at U.N. headquarters.
The rally was well attended by diverse groups of speakers and supporters from a wide range of backgrounds. Many rally participants affirmed Yang’s statements.
Fang Zheng, a fellow Tiananmen survivor who was injured when saving others on the Square, asserted during interview that “We want to stop this regime and stop its crimes. We want to have our calls heard by the world. We know that this evil regime has not only created many disasters for China – we’re very worried that, if its existence is allowed to continue, it will pose a major threat to the rest of the world.”
Wuer Kaixi, student leader at Tiananmen Square in 1989, also offered a challenge and a powerful reminder: “Our goal has not yet been reached… We have to celebrate the spirit of the 1989 student movement by celebrating democracy in China – and that day is yet to come.”
Other speakers brought their views about democracy to the fore while on stage. Charles Adwan of the Lebanese-based Right to Nonviolence, spoke of the Arab Spring movements in the Middle East. Alan Curtis, President of the Eisenhower Foundation in Washington DC, addressed the crowd by referencing the struggle of the American civil rights movement, in which leaders such as Dr Martin Luther King advocated for peaceful nonviolent change in the face of prevailing government opposition. New York based singer Al Smith, whose energetic R&B set started the rally off, echoed this theme with his rendition of Bob Dylan’s 1960’s tune Like a Rolling Stone. While he sang, the Tibetan flag was carried around the Plaza by representatives of the Tibetan community as a reminder that Tibet was an autonomous nation before it was forcibly annexed by China in the 1950’s.
A featured speaker for the Tiananmen Commemoration was Madame Xu Liping. This Tiananmen widow spoke in compelling detail about her husband, a member of the Chinese Communist Party who was on the Square early in the morning of June 4 in support of the democracy movement. He confronted Chinese troops and was shot multiple times, and later died at the hospital. She exhibited the bullets that were extracted from his body 22 years ago, and she promised to come back every year, carrying the bullets for all to see. There was an emotional moment as both speaker and translator had to compose themselves before continuing. When they did continue, and as the rally continued, it was to call for an annual event of remembrance of Tiananmen, for the celebration to grow larger and larger every year; to pick up where the Chinese students were so abruptly halted, to encompass and overwhelm the Chinese dictatorship with an increasing momentum of democracy, justice, and pride in freedom that will accomplish its goals not by guns and tanks, but by the cogent force of the people’s will in a peaceful yet unstoppable movement; to create an uprising that will uplift, inspire, and ultimately overtake a regime whose outmoded methods of authoritarian governance has outlived its usefulness. The time for change has always been now—was the message – get involved America!