Washington marked the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown with a series of events and statements on Tuesday, urging Beijing to release political prisoners and hold itself accountable for alleged human rights abuses. “Today, on the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, we remember the tens of thousands of peaceful Chinese pro-democracy protesters who were brutally assaulted for standing up for freedom, human rights and an end to corruption,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken also paid tribute to the “many voices now silenced throughout the country, including in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong” and vowed to continue working with the international community to promote “accountability” for Beijing’s alleged abuses within and beyond its borders.
Bipartisan groups of lawmakers hosted public commemorative events of their own. Members of the House select committee on China spoke in front of the Capitol. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the panel’s senior Democrat, vowed to support anyone who “stands for freedom”.
“Today, we say in one voice, in a bipartisan fashion: no more silence. No more silence about the Uygur genocide in Xinjiang. No more silence about Tiananmen Square.
No more silence about the cultural genocide happening in Tibet,” he said. Lawmakers, both current and former, referred to the changing political situation in Hong Kong at the event. “In Hong Kong, once a beacon of commemorative fr.
