UN rights chief urges China to halt Tiananmen anniversary sweep
Navi Pillay calls on China's authorities to come to terms with the events in Tiananmen Square 25 years ago and release activists detained in advance of anniversary
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Tuesday called on China to release dozens of activists detained ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy protests.
“I urge the Chinese authorities to immediately release those detained for the exercise of their human right to freedom of expression,” Pillay said in a statement.
Dozens of individuals, among them human rights campaigners, lawyers and journalists are believed to have been detained in advance of the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown.
Several were reportedly charged with “creating a disturbance” because they took part in a private discussion about the events of 1989, which remain highly sensitive for China’s communist regime.
China forbids public discussion of what happened in 1989 when the military brutally suppressed pro-democracy protesters, mainly students, who had staged a mass sit-in on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
“It is in the interests of everyone to finally establish the facts surrounding the Tiananmen Square incidents.”