Release the Tiananmen Square death toll, United States urges China
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo invokes late Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo as he calls on Beijing to give full public account of those who were killed, held or went missing
The United States has urged China to make a full public account of those killed, detained or who went missing during a crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The Chinese government sent tanks to quell the June 4, 1989 protests, and has never released a death toll. Estimates from human rights groups and witnesses range from several hundred to several thousand.
The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China and 29 years later it remains a point of contention between China and many Western countries.
In a statement on Sunday the recently appointed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he remembered “the tragic loss of innocent lives”.
“As Liu Xiaobo wrote in his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize speech, delivered in absentia, ‘the ghosts of June 4th have not yet been laid to rest’,” Pompeo said referring to the Chinese dissident who died last year while still in custody.
“We join others in the international community in urging the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing.”
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment and there was no mention of the day in state media.