More than 1,000 people gathered in Taiwan’s capital Taipei on Tuesday to honor the victims of China’s violent crackdown on the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989, urging the Beijing regime to stop trampling on human rights. .
A candlelight vigil marking the 35th anniversary of the June 4, 1989 tragedy was held on Tuesday in downtown Taipei with the theme “Ideals are bulletproof.”
Participants included ordinary Taiwanese residents, human rights activists who support Tibet and China’s oppressed Uyghur Muslim minority, exiled Chinese pro-democracy dissidents, and Hong Kongers who fled to Taiwan in recent years after Beijing strengthened its control over the former British colony.
Wu Renhua, 68, who witnessed the 1989 bloodbath in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing and now lives in Taipei, told the crowd how he and the students were forcibly expelled by tanks on that horrific day.
“When I returned to campus and saw the bodies that had been run over by tanks… I swore I would never forget it,” Wu told the crowd.
Since mid-April 1989, tens of thousands of student-led protesters have demanded democracy and government reforms in Tiananmen Square. The protest ended in a bloodbath, a subject that remains taboo in China even decades later.
At the vigil in Taipei, participants held small electric candles and observed 64 seconds of silence at 8:09 pm (12:09 pm GMT).
