STATEMENT ON 20th ANNIVERSARY OF TIANANMEN SQUARE CRACKDOWN
June 3, 2009
We honor the victims, many of them students, who sacrificed their lives for freedom, democracy, and reform twenty years ago in China.
We join with our Cuban brothers and sisters who one year ago paid tribute to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre at the monument to the Chinese fallen in the Cuban War of Independence in Havana on June 4, 2008.
Like our counterparts on the island as students we feel a connection to those Chinese students who exercised their fundamental rights to associate and speak freely in defense of democracy and human rights. Many paid the highest price for freedom with their very lives.
On June 3-4, 1989 the Chinese military extrajudicially executed thousands of unarmed students and workers violently crushing the non-violent student initiated mass demonstrations. We will never forget this heinous crime.
Twenty years later China remains one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. Christians, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and people of other faiths are systematically persecuted. Freedom of expression and association are systematically denied and censorship is ever present.
We repudiate the brutal actions of the government of communist China and call on the civilized world to hold accountable all those responsible for this atrocity, that a full investigation with the participation of international human rights organizations be carried out, and that justice be provided for the Chinese people slaughtered twenty years ago inside and outside of Tiananmen Square and their families.
We call on the democracies of the world to stand with the Chinese people in their desire to be free and have their human rights respected recognizing that the advancement of Chinese relations with the democracies of the world depends on the advancement of human rights in China.
Finally, we call for the immediate release of all Chinese prisoners of conscience and in particular those still imprisoned for taking part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations that remain imprisoned twenty years later such as Li Yujun, Zhu Gengsheng, Shi Xuezhi, Li Zhixin, Chang Jingqiang, Wu Chunqi, Yang Pu and Miao Deshun.
Miami, Florida June 3, 2009
1. Julio A. Menache, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2011
2. Juan Carlos Sanchez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2011
3. Pedro Ross, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2009
4. Susana Navajas, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2010
5. Jennifer Grau, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2009
6. John Suarez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 1996
7. Neri Ann Martinez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2005
8. Rebecca Martinez-Arguello, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2007
9. Isaac Martinez, Free Cuba Foundation, Florida International University 2006
10. CAUSA: Students United for a Free Cuba, University of Miami
11. Silvia Sarasua, Miami Friends of Tibet
12. Jian Hu, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
13. Sherwood Liu, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
14. Linda Li, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
15. Nancy Xia, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
16. Victoria Wu, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
17. Yanling Zhang , Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
18. Edie Bassen, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
19. Regina Finnegan, PhD, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
20. Marcus Green, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
21. Kay Harmon, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
22. Diana Crouch, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
23. Kent McKinney, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
24. David W. Lee, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
25. Paulene Jasurek, Falun Dafa Practitioners Association of Florida
26. Sebastian Arcos, Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Florida
International University 99, 08
27. Prof. Antonio Romero Piriz Red Uruguaya por Democracia para Cuba
28. Aramis L. Perez, Young Cubans in Action
29. Belkis Landa-Gonzalez, Ed.D, OTR/L Miami, FL
30. Tina Giamei-Valera Florida Tech University
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