Amnesty International (AI) yesterday called on the Chinese government to release all people imprisoned during the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests and arrest those responsible for the June 4 massacre.
"Tiananmen clearly remains very much alive today for the Chinese public and the demands by Chinese citizens for justice continue," the London-based rights group said in a statement. "We reiterate our call on the Chinese government to conduct an independent inquiry into the killing of unarmed students and demonstrators. Those found responsible should be tried and brought to justice."
"We also call on the government to release all those who are still imprisoned in connection with the Tiananmen crackdown and who never received fair trials," it said.
China's communist government has taken the position that concerns regarding the crackdown are "outdated," while maintaining that without it China would not have been able to enjoy 16 years of robust economic growth. It repeated that position on Thursday.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed students and demonstrators were gunned down in central Beijing when tanks were sent in to end the six-week long protests.
"The on-going passion that surrounds the issue in China is clear from the continuous string of detentions of citizens who seek to post information on the Internet regarding the dead or missing from 1989," Amnesty said.
The group listed several Chinese recently jailed for opposing the government's handling of the protests and also cited the continued harassment of a group of relatives of June 4 victims, known as the Tiananmen Mothers.
"The Tiananmen Mothers group was set up by Ding Zilin (丁子霖) after her son was killed in Beijing on 4 June, 1989, and has never ceased to call for an independent review of the events of 1989," it said of the Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
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