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Statements of AFAD
Proceedings:
Articles on the Proceedings on the AFAD Leadership Training
Jan. 27 - 31, 2003, Philippines
AFAD Second Congress Resolutions
August 2003
Remembering Munir
AFAD Second Congress
August 26-30, 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand
AFAD’s Mid-Year Report
Ding Zilin's
Message To
Hong Kong
Again, The KONTRAS – IKOHI Office Was Attacked
“ If they are dead, tell us”!
My sons, where are they?
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China - Tiananmen Mothers Campaign
First I’d like to tell you something about the background to the
emergence of the Tiananmen Mothers Campaign in China, and then I’ll
describe the activities of the last few years, both in terms of what the
Mothers have been doing in China and the solidarity actions of the
global campaign to support them.
The Tiananmen Mothers Campaign began in 1993, four years after the 1989
June 4 massacre in Beijing, the capital of China. Two months before the
tragedy, the reformist former Communist Party General Secretary Hu
Yaobang passed away, and public commemorative events to celebrate Hu
marked the start of what became a massive pro-democratic protest
movement that spread across the country. Students were at the forefront
of the movement, and among the main focuses were demands for government
action against corruption and bureaucracy.
After almost two months of daily marches and demonstrations that
attracted more and more public support, the movement was violently
suppressed by the government which claimed that the entirely peaceful
demonstrations were a “counterrevolutionary rebellion.” Troops armed
with machine guns and tanks were sent into Beijing on the night of June
3 and opened fire on unarmed citizens. Thousands of people are thought
to have been killed in the massacre, but there has never been any
official accounting for what happened. The government claims its actions
were completely justified and now it is almost taboo to even mention it.
After the massacre, those who lost family members during the 1989
crackdown grouped together to form a support network under the banner of
the Tiananmen Mothers. This was the beginning of Tiananmen Mothers
Campaign. The mothers of the dead were at the forefront of the campaign.
They challenged the official lies about what really happened and
insisted on revealing the truth about human rights violations and on
finding justice for the victims, including those who had been wounded
and disappeared.
Through a growing network, the families began to gather information to
document the crimes committed in the massacre. So far, they have
collected detailed testimonies from more than 27 victims’ families and
from some who were injured, as well as a list of 180 names of the dead
and 93 names of the injured. Apart from these, the mothers's network
also has contacts with twelve families and had documented their
disappearance cases. In 1999, they submitted the testimonies and the
list as evidence to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, which is China’s
prosecutor general. They asked for a criminal investigation to be
initiated to determine the legal responsibility for the loss of lives
and for the use of excessive force by the army, and requested
specifically that the investigation look into the culpability of leaders
such as former Premier Li Peng, who declared martial law before the
massacre.
Chinese law requires that the Procuratorate has to respond to any
petition requesting a criminal investigation, but there has been only
silence since then. In May 2000, the Tiananmen Mothers wrote again to
request a reply. They also asked for dialogue with the government but
have never received any response. Instead, they have been facing
escalating persecution from the Chinese government.
However, the Tiananmen Mothers have refused to give up their fight
against the impunity which has allowed perpetrators of human rights
violations in China to go unpunished. They see their mission as going
beyond the issue of their own children’s fate; their struggle is crucial
in preventing such massacres and rights abuses from happening in the
future.
The Tiananmen Mothers have faced persecution for their efforts, and the
government has tried to to cut off their contacts with the outside
world, especially contacts concerning humanitarian aid for June 4
victims and their families.
One Mother is Ding Zilin, who lost her 17-year-old son in the 1989
massacre. She and her husband, Jiang Peikun, live in the People’s
University compound where they both used to work. At sensitive times of
the year, such as the time around the anniversary of June 4 massacre,
they are put under virtual house arrest. From early May to late June, if
they try leave the university compound, they are immediately stopped by
plainclothes policemen at the school gate and told that they could be
arrested if they set a foot outside. On the tenth anniversary of the
massacre, some NGOs overseas held a press conference announcing that the
Tiananmen Mothers had requested legal action against former Premier Li
Peng. Afterwards, plainclothes police set up a guard post outside the
door of Ding’s apartment. Their phone line was cut, but in the middle of
the night, abusive, threatening and intimidating phone calls kept coming
in non-stop on their cell phone. It was clear from the telephone number
shown that calls were coming from the police.
The Tiananmen Mothers are deprived of the right to mourn publicly. Some
have been prevented from visiting the graves of their family members at
Qingming, that is Grave Sweeping Day.
Humanitarian funds intended to help the families of the massacre victims
have been confiscated by the government. In October 1998, the Chinese
government froze 11,620 German Marks transferred from Chinese students
in Germany, without giving a reason for its action. The funds have been
refrozen several times and have still not been released. Several months
later when a Chinese activist living in America returned to China to
deliver a check and a letter to the Tiananmen Mothers, he was forced by
the State Security Bureau to sign over the funds to one of their
officers. After learning that the US bank had issued a stop payment on
the check, the State Security Bureau confiscated the deed to this man’s
father’s house in China without giving any reason.
The authorities have repeatedly stopped the Mothers from receiving
visitors. In late March 2000, Lois Snow, the widow of American
journalist Edgar Snow who is known as a “friend of China” came to
Beijing to visit Ding to express her sympathy and support for the
families of June 4 victims. But she was prevented from entering the
People’s University Compound by undercover state security officers. At
the same time, many officers were sent to guard Ding’s apartment.
Another Mother, Su Bingxian, went to meet Lois Snow outside the gates of
the university, and accepted the small gifts Snow had brought. Su was
later arrested and held for 24 hours without charge.
Unfortunately, the Mothers cannot leave the country to attend events
like this AFAD conference. They fear that if they leave China, they may
never be able to return home. (Many dissidents who have gone abroad for
medical treatment or for other reasons have been prevented from
returning, even though they are Chinese citizens.) In May 2000, Ding
Zilin was invited to attend AFAD’s founding regional congress as the
representative of the Tiananmen Mothers but could not attend because of
her concern about being allowed to go home.
The persecution of the Tiananmen Mothers group has not diminished, but
the political space available to them has shrunk, and their situation is
becoming more and more difficult. For this reason, international
solidarity campaigns are very important in supporting their campaign
against impunity, and helping them to remind the world of their cause.
While activists are facing intimidation, harassment and house arrest
simply for demanding justice and insisting on revealing the truth,
support from international society means a great deal.
On the 11th anniversary of June 4 massacre, AFAD sent a letter of
condolence to the Tiananmen Mothers expressing solidarity with them. In
recent years, the Mothers also received other letters of support from
other groups, including from the Grandmothers of the Plaza Del Mayo in
Argentina, from the Tibetan Women’s Association and the Vietnam
Committee on Human Rights.
Since 2000, solidarity action to support the Tiananmen Mothers Campaign
has been a major focus for a group of NGOs in Hong Kong. Although Hong
Kong is a small city and is now a part of China, under the policy of
“one country, two systems”, local NGOs enjoy much more freedom and space
for campaigning than in mainland China. Also, Hong Kong people have
strong memories of the 1989 movement and the massacre, and the campaign
seeks to keep those alive and also show how the Mothers are really doing
something that seeks to end the cycle of impunity that has allowed such
violations of rights to happen again and again in China.
In August last year (2002), Aileen went to Beijing visiting three of the
mothers, Ding Zilin, Zhou Shuzhuang and You Weijie. They shared much
about the very difficult situation of mothers in China and their future
development plan. They also shared and exchanged a lot on campaign ideas
and experiences. On October 25, Tiananmen Mothers formally confirm to
join AFAD as a new member taking the opportunity to offer their support
as well as get more support and solidarity from anti-disappearances
campaign network. The mothers are all ready to support the Asian
campaign to build up the ending impunity system in Asia. Tiananmen
Mothers hope AFAD would understand their difficulties and they would
participate in the campaign network with the help of the Hong Kong-based
campaign groups to be their representatives.
Regarding what we do in Hong Kong, it involves educating people about
the June 4 massacre and asking them to support the Tiananmen Mothers.
Our activities have included submitting petitions to the authorities,
launching signature campaigns, joining June 4 anniversary
demonstrations, working in schools, using performance to help people
remember. We hope that others will also take up this effort, recognizing
the importance of the struggle against impunity for establishing
effective protections for human rights situation in China.
In 2000, Ding Zilin wrote, “Because our struggle for our own individual
rights has long been circumscribed to a very narrow space within China,
we hope to join our own campaign with the greater global trend. At the
same time, we wish to contribute to the regional and international cause
of freedom and justice.”
Although the Tiananmen Mothers have faced great difficulties, they have
never given up. Their appeals are an attempt to seek justice for the
dead and the disappeared and to fight for the human dignity of the
living. They have always used a peaceful, rational and restrained
approach in response to the suffering and injustices imposed on them.
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