Campaign for human rights and rule of law on mainland will not be defeated by crackdowns or defence of one-party rule, activist insists
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 31 August, 2014, 4:49am UPDATED : Sunday, 31 August, 2014, 4:49am
Teng Biao, a mainland civil-rights lawyer, says the desire for rights and justice will not be defeated by repression. Photo: May Tse
Softly spoken and easily embarrassed, Teng Biao has a reserved, childlike gentleness. Yet few people have his moral courage to speak up for what they believe in, particularly when there is a price to pay.
On the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown on June 4, the mainland law academic made an impassioned speech at the candlelight vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, criticising the persecution of political activists on the mainland.
“The massacre did not stop in 1989. The killing, in the name of a political ‘campaign’, in the name of law, in the name of maintaining stability, in the name of state unity, has never stopped,” Teng told the crowd.
For the past two years, Teng has been a visiting scholar at Hong Kong’s Chinese University. He leaves in a few days to take up a visiting position at Harvard University in the United States.
But Hong Kong, the mainland and universal rights are unlikely to be far from his thoughts.
In his speech to the crowd in Victoria Park, Teng proclaimed his support for the push in Hong Kong for universal suffrage and the Occupy Central movement, saying he “also looks forward to occupying Tiananmen Square with love and peace one day”.
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