Wei Jingsheng is a Chinese human rights activist and dissident. He is best known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement. He is most prominent for having authored the essay "The Fifth Modernization", which was posted on the Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978. As punishment for writing his manifesto, Wei was arrested and convicted of "counter-revolutionary" activities, and he was detained as a political prisoner from 1979 to 1993. Briefly released in 1993, Wei continued to engage in his dissident activities by speaking to visiting journalists, and as punishment, he was imprisoned again from 1994 to 1997, making it a total of 18 years he has spent in various prisons. He was deported to the United States of America on 16 November 1997, on medical parole. Still a Chinese citizen, in 1998 Wei established the Wei Jingsheng Foundation in New York City whose stated aim is to work to improve human rights and advocate democratisation in China.
Wang Dan is a leader of the Chinese democracy movement and was one of the most visible student leaders in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He holds a PhD in history from Harvard University, and from August 2009 to February 2010, Wang taught cross-strait history at Taiwan's National Chengchi University as a visiting scholar. He then taught at National Tsing Hua University until 2015.
The China Democracy Party, also known as the Democracy Party of China (DPC), is a political party that started in the People's Republic of China, and was banned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The history of the DPC and its foundation date is unclear because it has many historical paths under different groups of founders. According to western sources, it is generally recognized to have assembled in 1998 by democracy activists and former student leaders from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Shi Tao is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet, who in 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for releasing a document of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to an overseas Chinese democracy site. Yahoo! China was later discovered to have facilitated his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo! was subsequently rebuked by a panel of the U.S. Congress, settled a lawsuit by Shi's family out of court, and pledged to reform its practices.
Xiong Yan is a Chinese-American human rights activist, military officer, and Protestant chaplain. He was a dissident involved in 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Xiong Yan studied at Peking University Law School from 1986 to 1989. He came to the United States of America as a political refugee in 1992, and later became a chaplain in U.S. Army, serving in Iraq. Xiong Yan is the author of three books, and has earned six degrees. He ran for Congress in New York's 10th congressional district in 2022, and his campaign was reportedly attacked by agents of China's Ministry of State Security.
Liu Xiaobo was a Chinese literary critic, human rights activist, philosopher and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who called for political reforms and was involved in campaigns to end Chinese Communist Party one-party rule in China. He was arrested numerous times, and was described as China's most prominent dissident and the country's most famous political prisoner. On 26 June 2017, he was granted medical parole after being diagnosed with liver cancer; he died a few weeks later on 13 July 2017.
Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by 303 Chinese dissident intellectuals and human rights activists. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting its name and style from the anti-Soviet Charter 77 issued by dissidents in Czechoslovakia. Since its release, more than 10,000 people inside and outside China have signed the charter. After unsuccessful reform efforts in 1989 and 1998 by the Chinese democracy movement, Charter 08 was the first challenge to one-party rule that declared the end of one-party rule to be its goal; it has been described as the first one with a unified strategy.
Baiqiao Tang is a Chinese political dissident from Hunan province who led student protests during the 1989 democracy movement. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Tang fled from agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who eventually arrested him in the city of Jiangmen. He was charged with being a counter-revolutionary and imprisoned. Upon his release, he fled to Hong Kong, where he co-authored the report Anthems of Defeat: Crackdown in Hunan Province 1989 - 1992 through Human Rights Watch with Dr. Robin Munro of the University of London. Tang was later accepted into the United States as a political refugee in 1992. Tang claimed that he graduated in 2003 with a Master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University, but university archive and registrar of Columbia University claimed that he studied there but did not graduate.
Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao were arrested in late 1989 for their involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Chinese authorities alleged they were the "black hands" behind the movement. Both Chen and Wang rejected the allegations made against them. They were put on trial in 1990 and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre were the first of their type shown in detail on Western television. The Chinese government's response was denounced, particularly by Western governments and media. Criticism came from both Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia and some east Asian and Latin American countries. Notably, many Asian countries remained silent throughout the protests; the government of India responded to the massacre by ordering the state television to pare down the coverage to the barest minimum, so as not to jeopardize a thawing in relations with China, and to offer political empathy for the events. North Korea, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, among others, supported the Chinese government and denounced the protests. Overseas Chinese students demonstrated in many cities in Europe, America, the Middle East, and Asia against the Chinese government.
The 24th anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 took place in China and internationally around 4 June 2013. The protests commemorated victims of the Chinese Communist Party crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Activities included the state of alert within mainland China, and the traditional marches and candlelight vigils that took place in Hong Kong and Macau on 4 June 2013 which have taken place every year prior to that since 1990. The two former colonies are the only places on Chinese soil where the 1989 crushing of China's pro-democracy movement can be commemorated.
Fang Zheng is a former student protester who was seriously injured during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. During the evacuation of the Square in the early morning of June 4, Fang was run over by a People’s Liberation Army tank, which led to the amputation of both his legs. He is currently the president of Chinese Democracy Education Foundation.
Liu Gang is a Chinese-born American aerospace engineer, computer scientist, optical physicist, political activist, and writer. He founded the Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation. He was a prominent student leader at the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Liu holds an M.A. in physics from Peking University and an M.A. in computer science from Columbia University. After his exile to the United States in 1996, Liu studied technology and physics at Bell Labs in New Jersey. Liu was employed at Morgan Stanley as a Wall Street IT analyst.
Chu Yiu-ming is the minister of Chai Wan Baptist Church in Hong Kong. He is one of the founders of the Occupy Central campaign for universal suffrage in the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election.
The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy is an annual human rights summit sponsored by a coalition of 20 non-governmental organizations. Each year, on the eve of the United Nations Human Rights Council's main annual session, activists from around the world meet to raise international awareness of human rights situations.
Lü Jinghua is a Chinese dissident and activist, and was a key member of the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation (BWAF) during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The BWAF was the People's Republic of China's (PRC) first independent trade union, established as an alternative to the Party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and Lü served as the union's broadcaster. After the June 4th crackdown, Lü was placed on China's most wanted list, and subsequently fled to the United States.
Citizen Power Initiatives for China, previously known as Initiatives for China or Citizen Power for China, is pro-democracy movement and NGO committed for a peaceful transition to democracy in China through non-violent strategies based in Washington, D.C. The organization has been involved with works on U.S. Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, the Australian Magnitsky Act, representing Liu Xiaobo at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and 2014 Hong Kong protests.
The 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 was principally events that occurred in China and elsewhere on 4 June 2019 - to commemorate the Chinese Communist Party's crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in which hundreds of people were killed.
Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang is a Hong Kong activist and politician. He is the former spokesman for the Hong Kong Higher Institutions International Affairs Delegation (HKIAD) as the representative of the students union council of the University of Hong Kong. He participated in the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 and the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. His lobbying efforts in the United States and various countries helped to promote the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, along with sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials.
