By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, June 4: The India chapter of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) put up an installation ‘Uncensor June 4’ at the main temple in Dharamsala to highlight Beijing’s tight censorship during the commemoration of the 28th anniversary of Tiananmen massacre.
“Each year we commemorate this day to show our solidarity with democracy activists and the victims of the Tiananmen massacre. Like the 1959 Tibet occupation, the Chinese government has played out every card to erase it from public memory, which is why it is so important for us to speak about this issue and expose CCP brutality,” said Tenzin Tselha, the National Director of SFT-India,
The crackdown on pro-democracy protest led by Chinese students and workers striving for democratic reforms, freedom of press and speech suffered heavily at the hands of Chinese military who used guns and tanks to suppress them. Widely known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the crackdown resulted in over thousands death.
SFT-India’s installation is to stand in solidarity with Chinese students and people who suffered as a result of their protest.
“The Chinese government has used unreasonable magnitude of censorship to suppress information and views. There are many keywords such as June 4th, democracy and freedom being censored by China. So this installation is to show how China is censoring to restrict information,” said Lobsang Tseten, SFT-India’s Campaign Director.
He also added that through the event, the organization wanted to spread awareness and to strive to uncensor the keywords blocked by the Chinese government.
“In exile we can freely say His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Kundun but there in Tibet, they only say ‘him’ while referring him. Tibetans in Tibet love exiled-based Tibetan singers, however, they listen with their car windows shut since they are many mention of the Dalai Lama,” said a foreigner, who has visited Tibet recently.
