NEW YORK (June 4, 2025) — Today marks the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese regime unleashed tanks and armed troops to crush a peaceful student movement demanding freedom and democracy. The brutal crackdown shocked the world and continues to cast a long shadow over China’s appalling human rights record.
Though decades have passed, the ideals the students fought for — human rights, liberty, and democratic reform — remain alive. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still tries to suppress those ideals at home and export its authoritarian playbook abroad. But remembrance itself has become a form of resistance, carried forward by digital tools, diaspora communities, and a new generation committed to preserving the truth.
In an op-ed published today in The Hill, we explore how the spirit of Tiananmen endures as authoritarian regimes around the globe adopt increasingly sophisticated tactics to erase history and silence dissent. Yet despite their efforts, the memory of June 4 remains indelible:
“While the regime refines repression, people refine resistance. There is a limit to what software can suppress — and suppression breeds creativity. When authorities silenced slogans, protesters raised blank signs; when images of state violence were scrubbed from the Internet, diaspora artists, technologists, and archivists reassembled them through AI, immersive installations, and blockchain repositories. While the streets of Hong Kong may now fall silent on June 4, Tiananmen’s memory has not vanished — it has gone global.”
The legacy of Tiananmen lives not only in essays and archives but also in the stories we continue to share. As part of our CCP Disruption Initiative — which exposes how the Chinese regime’s global reach threatens human rights and democratic values — we have created a video tribute to those who stood for freedom in 1989.
Watch HRF’s video “Remembering Tiananmen Square.”
The fight to preserve memory and truth is also personal. In 2018, Fang Zheng, a student who was peacefully protesting for democracy at Tiananmen Square, shared his story on the Oslo Freedom Forum stage. As the military evacuated the square on June 4, 1989, a tank ran over Fang and crushed his legs. While the government has tried to pressure Fang to lie about his injury, he took to the Oslo Freedom Forum stage to carry on the legacy of so many silenced youth and remain a voice of truth for the Tiananmen Square survivors.
Watch Fang Zheng’s talk, “The Six Four Incident,” at the 2018 Oslo Freedom Forum.
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