By Emily Lau



As one of Hong Kong’s most outspoken and popular politicians, Emily Lau leads The Frontier party.

On June 4, 1989, the authorities in Beijing ordered a bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square and in other parts of the Chinese capital. The People’s Liberation Army turned its guns and tanks on the students and local residents who had demonstrated against corruption, nepotism and suppression of basic human rights.

We don’t know how many people perished. Beijing should conduct an independent inquiry and present its findings. This should include suggestions for rehabilitation and compensation to victims and their families. National leaders should make a formal apology to the victims. Only then can the nation’s healing finally begin.

In Hong Kong, then a British colony, more than a million people joined huge demonstrations in support of the peaceful demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Grief, anger and frustration rocked Hong Kong to its foundation.

For 19 years now, tens of thousands of Hong Kong people have gathered on June 4 for a candlelight vigil. This year, more than 48,000 people participated. We just cannot forgive or forget the bloody crackdown. The vigil isn’t just to remember the dead. It also shows support for a democratic and free China.

On August 8, the Olympics Games begin in Beijing. When the Chinese government bid for the Olympics in 2001, it gave an undertaking to enhance human rights and move toward democracy. The promise remains unfulfilled.

A new Amnesty International report on human rights in China paints a grim picture. It says that more human-rights activists were imprisoned, harassed and put under house-arrest or surveillance. Repression of minority groups, including Tibetans, continued. Torture of detainees remained prevalent. Millions of people without access to justice had to seek redress by an ineffective extra-legal petition system. Preparations for the Olympics led to a clampdown on human-rights activists. Censorship of the Internet and other media intensified.

We must reflect on the values for which the Tiananmen Square protestors died. One will never say they died in vain, but admittedly, the road to a free and democratic China looks long and rocky.

According to Amnesty, Chinese people who peacefully exercised their rights, such as freedom of expression and association, have remained at high risk of enforced disappearance, illegal and incommunicado detention or house arrest, surveillance, beatings and harassment. Amnesty says about 500,000 people have been subjected to punitive detention without charges or trials. To prepare for the Olympics, the police extended the use of “re-education through labor” and “enforced drug rehabilitation” to “clean up” Beijing.

Amnesty singles out the plight of one activist, Yang Chunlin, a human-rights defender from Heilongjiang Province. He supported a legal action brought by more than 40,000 farmers whose land had been confiscated without compensation. He helped to gather signatures on a petition titled “We want human rights, not the Olympics” signed by many farmers.

Last July, Yang was detained for “inciting subversion of state power”. In February, he received a five-year prison sentence. Repeatedly, he was denied access to his family and lawyer because his case “related to the state”. Many times, he endured torture, his arms and legs stretched and chained to the four corners of an iron bed. Such treatment is shocking and deeply deplorable.

Amnesty acknowledges that the space for civil-society activities has grown. We see evidence in the relief efforts by non-government organizations and individuals after the recent Sichuan earthquake.

But Amnesty warns that the targeting of human-rights defenders who raised politically sensitive issues also intensified. The authorities criminalized the activities of such people by charging them with offences like damaging public property, extortion and fraud.

Increasingly, human-rights defenders and their relatives, including children, endured harassment, like surveillance, house arrest and beatings by government officials or “unidentified” assailants. Targeted lawyers had their license-renewal applications rejected.

Last year, the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group was formed, and I’m a vice-chairman. We want the mainland human-rights defenders and lawyers to know there are people in Hong Kong who admire their moral courage and determination to help the underprivileged and downtrodden. The Concern Group believes the rule of law and an independent legal and judicial system are imperative to a free and democratic China.

Another item in the Amnesty report is press freedom, for which the Tiananmen protesters campaigned. The report says the authorities maintain tight control on the flow of information by deciding what topics and stories can be published. Media freedom to cover the Sichuan earthquake is a big exception. I hope that such freedom may spread.

Amnesty says that about 30 journalists were known to be in prison. At least 50 people were jailed for posting views on the Internet. One well-known case is that of Hu Jia, a human-rights activist sentenced in March to three-and-a-half years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power”. The basis for conviction was press interviews and online articles.

In this momentous year, I hope the Olympics will be successful. But China must keep its promise made in 2001 to enhance human rights and move toward democracy. It should ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which it signed in 1998), release all prisoners of conscience and journalists and allow the media to operate freely. All this may be a tall order, but I hope it’ll happen before August.

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