Press release, 28 May 2010

 

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

http://www.aidoh.dk/4June89

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.

·        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.

·        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 8 meter high Pillar of Shame in Hong Kong to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen massacre.

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