Tibetan organizations remember repression of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square by Chinese forces, seeing similarities with the repression of Tibet.

Commemorating the 17th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, today we the Tibetan youth stand with the youth of China in their demand for Democracy and freedom in China. It was on this day, 17 years ago, the brutal PLA soldiers violently suppressed a huge gathering of young Chinese demanding free press and Democracy in China. The gathering that formed from early April 1989 went on to grow, at a time the crowd swelling beyond one million Chinese workers, students and ordinary people.

When the protest gathering at the Tiananmen Square was becoming bigger when youth power was growing, the Chinese communist regime felt the heat and threatened. Li Peng, the then Chinese Premier ordered flush by military force, thereby causing a massacre of young people at the Tiananmen public square in front of the world media. This has today become the symbol of youth movement all over the world for Democracy and freedom.

Tibetan youth today remember the first major attempt by young Chinese to bring in Democracy in China. We look at this as the beginning of the democracy movement. But the way in which the government of China dealt with the young and unarmed peaceful protesters demanding freedom outraged the world and even to these days, people of the world think of June 6th as one of the most shameful act by a government on their own people in the recent history.

While thinking of Tiananmen, we think of their blood sacrifice made by the young people of china who were killed by bullets and mowed down by tanks of their own government. We are now getting to know that there were some Tibetan University students also at the Tiananmen Square and one Tibetan even got shot in his leg.

To mark the anniversary, we organize a public gathering in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala. The Public will mourn the death of those who were killed in the Tiananmen massacre. We will light 17 candles symbolic to seventeen years of memory. The gathering will then watch the film “The Gate of Heavenly Peace” which documents in detail what happened and how it happened in the spring of 1989 in China. The world cannot forget this.

The programme will begin from 7pm on the June 4th 2006, at the Yongling School, McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala. Similar programmes are also happening in different places in India organized by RTYC Bangalore, FOT Bombay and IBD Sarah Institute, Dharamsala.

All are welcome to witness history.