The Tiananmen Mothers, an activist group comprising family members of victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, has accused the Beijing government of “continuing to commit crimes.”
In an open letter published on Wednesday by Human Rights in China, the group wrote: “A government that unscrupulously slaughters its own fellow citizens, a government that does not know how to cherish its own fellow citizens, and a government that forgets, conceals, and covers up the truth of historical suffering has no future.”
The group said the victims’ families had been followed, detained and watched by the police for the past three decades.
“It has been 27 years of white terror and suffocation,” the group wrote. “The police use contemptible means such as making up stories, fabricating facts, issuing threats, etc., against us.”
US-backed RFA reported that Ding Zilin, the 79-year-old founder of the group, has been confined to her home by the police in Beijing. Communications with the outside world have been cut off.
The Tiananmen Mothers said visits to Ding are only allowed after approval by the Security Bureau.
“She is physically and mentally exhausted and her state is worrisome,” they wrote.
Ding’s 17-year-old son was killed by a bullet when he was heading for Tiananmen Square in 1989. Her husband, Jiang Peikun, died of a heart attack last September.
Meanwhile, at least three activists have been detained in Beijing ahead of a commemoration meeting on Tuesday, according to the Chinese human rights advocate Liu Xuehong and San Francisco-based co-founder of Humanitarian China, Zhou Fengsuo.
A man, Fu Hailu, was arrested on Saturday for allegedly producing bottles of liquor labelled with allusions to the massacre, according to Ming Pao.
