Give the Chinese students
their history back!
Help mark the 21th anniversary of
the Tiananmen massacre. In 1989 the Chinese students occupied the Tiananmen
Square in Beijing for months in an attempt to press the Chinese government to
take steps towards democracy and to fight against corruption. But on 4th
June 1989 the regime threw in the army against the unarmed students.
Give the Chinese their story
back. The story is banned in China, but all the students’ newspaper articles,
fliers etc. have been collected by the democracy movement in Hong Kong. These
collections of Chinese and English documents have now been scanned and put on
the Internet from where they can be downloaded for free, see
Many of the young dissidents
were imprisoned in the wake of the crackdown. Some are still in jail but
they are no longer young. China still practises a massive censorship on
information on the massacre. And it is impossible for Chinese people to obtain
uncensored information about the event.
Thousands of Chinese students
are today studying at universities and other institutions of education in the
West. Most of them do not even know their own history due to the censorship.
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Therefore we invite
all pro-democracy institutions, scholars and working colleagues to download
and print out this documentation or burn it on a CD. Place it on the shelves of
libraries and hand it out as a gift to Chinese students on 4th June,
the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.
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This way we can
make a contribution to preserve the memory of the victims and maybe inspire
a new generation of Chinese to see democracy as a possibility for China.
We call on everybody to
support this initiative and to mail this appeal to other institutions of
education where there are Chinese students or others who might be interested in
preserving and distributing the knowledge about the Tiananmen massacre.
The initiative of this appeal
and informative campaign is a co-operation between the democracy movement in
Hong Kong and Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot who in 1997 put up an
This year Jens Galschiot has decided not to go to Hong Kong. Like the previous years he has been invited by the Democracy Movement to
join the commemoration ahead of the 21st anniversary of the
crackdown. But for two consecutive years Hong Kong’s immigration authorities have
refused his entry without justification. So he will not risk once again to book
an expensive ticket and endure a troublesome 48 hours flight just to be sent
back immediately with the first plane. You’ll find more information about the
expulsions at http://www.aidoh.dk/Expulsion
It seems that China’s government has tightened
its grip on Hong Kong. Galschiot is just one of many critics who have been
denied entry. So the city is deprived of a cultural exchange that is taken for
granted in all open democratic societies. The expulsions are a strident
violation of the principle of ‘One country – Two systems’ that was guarantied
ahead of Hong Kong’s reunion with China in ‘97.
Background:
Jens Galschiot, Denmark, born 1954,
sculptor. He stakes his art to defend the ethical values of
our society, regardless of political, religious or economic interests. His
sculptures suddenly appear in public areas and start the performance. Best
known are My Inner Beast (European cities in 1993) and the Pillar of
Shame (Hong Kong, Mexico and Brazil). The projects are financed through the
sale of Galschiot’s bronze sculptures to art collectors all over the world
Info: www.aidoh.dk. At the moment he is
working on a worldwide art happening about global warming titled www.SevenMeters.net
The
democracy movement in Hong Kong:
HK Alliance in Support of Patriotic
Democratic Movements of China - Phone: +852-2782-6111
E-mail: contact@alliance.org.hk
Website: www.alliance.org.hk
Contact to Jens Galschiot:
E-mail: aidoh@aidoh.dk, Info: www.aidoh.dk, tel. +45 6618 4058, Banevaenget 22, DK-5270 Odense N, Denmark