Taipei vigil draws around 3,000 to mark Tiananmen Square massacre

Taipei, June 4 (CNA) Around 3,000 people gathered in Taipei for an annual candlelight vigil commemorating the June 4th Incident, a brutal crackdown by Chinese authorities on a student-led demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square 36 years ago, according to the organizer.

The candlelight vigil, organized by the New School for Democracy and other human rights groups, began at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday on Democracy Boulevard outside Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, with the theme "Resist Transnational Repression, Defy Totalitarianism."

At around 8:00 p.m., the organizer announced that around 3,000 people had attended the event, which featured brief speeches by human rights activists from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and other countries.

Holding electronic candles in the rain, participants -- many of them Hongkongers living in Taiwan -- observed 64 seconds of silence at around 8:30 p.m. to mourn those who lost their lives in the crackdown.

Among those who gave a speech on stage, Wu Renhua (吳仁華), a Chinese scholar and survivor of the massacre, said he would never forget the sight of five bodies lying outside a building at the China University of Political Science and Law -- all students who had been crushed to death by tanks.

"At that moment, I knelt in front of the bodies and wept. In my heart, I kept telling myself: never forget," he said.

Wu said he has been attending the annual vigil in Taipei since 2018, and has often been asked by Taiwanese, "The massacre happened in Beijing, China -- why should people in Taiwan or Taiwanese civil groups commemorate it?"

Wu said his response is that "Human rights have no borders," and that since Taiwan has undergone a democratic transformation after the martial law era, it should care about the Tiananmen Square massacre-- a major human rights catastrophe that once took place in Beijing and shocked the world.

He added that the commemoration can also highlight the values of democracy that Taiwan holds and "exposes the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) authoritarian system."

As a first-time participant, 24-year-old Lin Chan-wei (林辰韋) told CNA he felt deep sorrow whenever he saw footage and photos showing how "the CCP used guns and tanks to crush and shoot its own people" during the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The Taiwanese student said there was once a possibility that China could become even more democratic than Taiwan, but after a series of brutal crackdowns and the suppression of civic movements, "China has become what it is today, a country with no freedom of speech at all."

"What's regrettable about China's path to democracy is that it seems to have collapsed just before the break of dawn," he added.

As for the significance of Taiwan holding events to commemorate the June 4th Incident, Lin said the island country is standing in solidarity with the rare but still-existing human rights movements across the Taiwan Strait.

Serving as a helper at the event, Ivan Choi (蔡智豪), a Hongkonger living in Taiwan, said he had attended the candlelight vigil in Hong Kong for years before self-exiling to Taiwan in 2019 due to his active involvement in the city's mass protests that year.

For years, pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong held annual candlelight vigils in Victoria Park on June 4, drawing tens of thousands of attendees. However, the Hong Kong authorities banned the event in 2020, citing COVID-19 concerns.

Since the imposition of the Hong Kong national security law on June 30, 2020, no large-scale candlelight vigil has been held in the city to commemorate the June 4th Incident.

"Maybe because I was a frontline protester [in Hong Kong], these images [of the massacre] hit me especially hard... I just keep asking myself -- how can they be so cruel?" the 26-year-old asked.

Asked about Taiwan's role in commemorating the June 4th Incident, Choi said he appreciates the island country for approaching the incident with a special focus on exposing the truth behind human rights violations and using it as a warning.

"To remind people that Taiwan is still under threat from China, and to help young people see [the Chinese regime for] what it really is," he added.

In addition to the event near Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Hongkongers in Taipei held a separate candlelight vigil at 228 Peace Memorial Park, with around 100 people in attendance.