Tag Archives: Xi Jinping

The “Chinese Spring,” in which millions of demonstrators demanded freedom and democracy, was crushed brutally by the army on 4 June 1989. Twenty-five years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, China’s citizens are still denied fundamental freedoms, Continue reading →

 TIANANMEN INITIATIVE PROJECT

纪念”六四” 25周年倡议

An Open letter to Xi Jinping regarding illegal detention of Chinese scholars

05/13/2014

President Xi Jinping

Mr President:

We have learned that our fellow scholars Xu Youyu, Hao Jian, and Hu Shigen, and civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and writer Liu Di, were criminally detained for “creating a disturbance in a public place, causing serious disorder”. The alleged reason for their detention was that on 3 May they were among the fifteen participants in a “ 2014 Workshop on Beijing’s June Fourth” that took place in a private apartment in Beijing.

These detentions raise many disturbing questions. For example, how can a private meeting “create disturbance in a public place”? These citizens were detained because they discussed an event that took place twenty-five years ago and that had a profound impact on the course of Chinese history. How can a discussion among scholars, lawyers and writers at someone’s home be considered a “disturbance”? As you have often reminded your Japanese counterparts, to be strong, a nation must confront its past. As scholars who have devoted our lives to the study of China, we are convinced that this country will only benefit from a free exchange of ideas that helps to establish historical truth.

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