Taipei: Around 3,000 people gathered in Taipei for an annual candlelight vigil commemorating the June 4th Incident, a brutal crackdown by Chinese authorities on a student-led demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square 36 years ago, according to the organizer.
According to Focus Taiwan, the candlelight vigil was organized by the New School for Democracy and other human rights groups. It began at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday on Democracy Boulevard outside Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, with the theme "Resist Transnational Repression, Defy Totalitarianism."
At around 8:00 p.m., the organizer announced that around 3,000 people had attended the event, which featured brief speeches by human rights activists from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and other countries. Holding electronic candles in the rain, participants-many of them Hongkongers living in Taiwan-observed 64 seconds of silence at around 8:30 p.m. to mourn those who lost their lives in the crackdown.
Among those who gave a speech on stage, Wu Renhua, a Chinese scholar and survivor of the massacre, said he would never forget the sight of five bodies lying outside a building at the China University of Political Science and Law-all students who had been crushed to death by tanks. Wu has been attending the annual vigil in Taipei since 2018 and has often been asked why people in Taiwan should commemorate an event that happened in Beijing. He responded that "Human rights have no borders," emphasizing the importance of remembering the Tiananmen Square massacre as a significant human rights catastrophe.
First-time participant Lin Chanwe, a 24-year-old Taiwanese student, expressed deep sorrow when recalling footage of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Lin remarked on the lost potential for China to become more democratic and highlighted Taiwan's solidarity with human rights movements.
Ivan Choi, a Hongkonger living in Taiwan, served as a helper at the event and shared his experiences attending similar vigils in Hong Kong before moving to Taiwan in 2019. He appreciated Taiwan's efforts to highlight human rights violations and use the commemoration as a warning.
In addition to the event near Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Hongkongers in Taipei held a separate candlelight vigil at 228 Peace Memorial Park, with around 100 people in attendance.