China:Ten Years After Tiananmen

China:Ten Years After Tiananmen 26 May1999 The 4th June 1999 marks the tenth anniversary of the massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians in Beijing and the arrest of tens of thousands of demonstrators in major cites and provinces around China. On the night of 3 to 4 June heavily armed troops and hundreds of armoured military vehicles stormed into the city to clear the streets of pro-democracy demonstrators, firing at onlookers and protesters in the process. These events …

…to improve its human rights record through dialogue with governments and the recent signing of two key human rights conventions. The 10th anniversary of the 1989 pro-democracy protests would be an occasion for the government to demonstrate to its citizens and to the world that it is sincere in working towards an improvement in human rights and decide to instigate an open inquiry into the events surrounding the Fourth June and offer compensation to its victims.