On June 4, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), a DC-based international human rights organization, will hold a rally at the U.S. Capitol to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the ongoing human rights violations in China. It’s expected to be big. Speakers will include witnesses of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, activists, and policymakers, including VOC Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Co-Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). You can find the full event release with more information below. VOC Executive Director, Marion Smith, is available for interviews from DC.
VOC’s work has focused on calling out China’s human rights violations. In June 2016, computer hackers supporting China’s Communist government shut down VOC’s website during an international online meeting highlighting the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing. In December 2016, when the Miss World pageant – largely sponsored by Chinese companies, silenced Chinese beauty Queen Anastasia Lin, a critic of China, at a U.S. competition, VOC sponsored the premiere of her film and stood by her side. In July 2016, VOC released its annual Captive Nations Report on North Korea in which they rebuked China for failing to curb North Korean aggression. Just last month, Marion authored this oped in the Washington Post: Buying stock in these Chinese companies makes you complicit in terror on Uighurs.
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Rally At U.S. Capitol To Commemorate Tiananmen Square And Condemn Ongoing Human Rights Violations In China
More than twenty human-rights organizations will gather to highlight the past and present suppression of the Chinese people by Beijing’s authoritarian regime
WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 4 will mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, during which the Chinese Communist Party massacred thousands of innocent student protestors. The People's Republic of China to this day, censors any mention of the Massacre and refuses to acknowledge it even happened. The regime that ordered those murders is still the same one currently reigning in Beijing, and its human rights abuses continue to this day.
On June 4 at the U.S. Capitol, The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) along with more than 20 other human rights organizations will hold a rally to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and to highlight the continued oppression of the Chinese people by the Chinese Communist Party. Speakers will include witnesses of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, activists, and policymakers, including VOC Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Co-Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). To register, please visit the rally’s Eventbrite website.
Marion Smith, VOC Executive Director, issued the following statement:
"Thirty years ago, China’s so-called ‘People’s Liberation Army’ murdered thousands of its fellow citizens who dared to protest for democracy and against corruption in Tiananmen Square. An opportunity to reform China's communist system in favor of the Chinese peoples' rights was extinguished. On June 4 we gather to remember the sacrifices of those brave Chinese students and workers from 1989 and others around the world who have tried to keep their memory alive. It is our duty to make sure they did not die in vain. We have inherited their struggle, even as Xi Jinping has inherited leadership of the guilty Party. Today, as many as two million Uighurs languish in Chinese prison camps just for having practiced their faith. At home, more and more Americans are beginning to see the People's Republic of China for what it is--an unreformed communist dictatorship that tramples on human rights inside of China and threatens international peace abroad. To sit by in the face of such travesties is to betray the memory of Tiananmen’s victims and our own national interest as Americans. Instead we must continue their fight, serving as their voice and applying maximum pressure to Beijing to reform."
WHO: Amnesty International USA, Bitter Winter, Campaign for Uyghurs, ChinaAid, Citizen Power Initiatives for China, Dialogue China, East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, Formosan Association for Public Affairs, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian China, International Campaign for Tibet, International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation, Keep Taiwan Free, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, Students for a Free Tibet, The Chen Guangcheng Foundation, The Church of Almighty God, Tibet Action Institute, Uyghur Human Rights Project, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, World Uyghur Congress
WHAT: Rally to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and to highlight the continued suppression of the Chinese people by the Chinese government
WHERE: U.S. Capitol West Lawn, 1st Street SW & 1st Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
WHEN: Tuesday, June 4, 2019, 1:30–3:00pm EDT
***MEDIA, PLEASE RSVP TO [email protected]***
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) is a Washington-based, non-profit educational and human rights organization devoted to commemorating the more than 100 million victims of communism around the world and to the freedom of those still living under totalitarian regimes. VOC was established by unanimous act of Congress on December 17, 1993 and signed by President Bill Clinton.
