[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1221 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1221
Marking the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and
condemning the ongoing and often brutal suppression of human rights and
basic freedoms by the Government of the People's Republic of China and
Chinese Communist Party, including in the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 10, 2024
Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself and Ms. Wexton) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Marking the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and
condemning the ongoing and often brutal suppression of human rights and
basic freedoms by the Government of the People's Republic of China and
Chinese Communist Party, including in the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region, and for other purposes.
Whereas June 4, 2024, marks the 35th anniversary of the violent crackdowns on
peaceful demonstrations held on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing and
in 400 other cities in the People's Republic of China;
Whereas these demonstrations included an estimated 1,000,000 Chinese citizens
from all walks of life, including students, government employees,
journalists, workers, police officers, and members of the Armed Forces,
who gathered peacefully to call for democratic reforms;
Whereas these peaceful demonstrators called upon the Government of the People's
Republic of China to eliminate corruption, accelerate economic and
political reform, and protect human rights, particularly the freedoms of
expression and assembly--concerns that remain pertinent in China today;
Whereas the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party sent armed People's
Liberation Army (PLA) troops and tanks into Beijing and surrounding
areas beginning on June 3, 1989, killing and injuring thousands of
demonstrators and other unarmed civilians, including in Tiananmen
Square;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to censor any
mention of the crackdown centered on Tiananmen Square and prevents the
victims from being publicly mourned and remembered;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China harasses, detains, and
arrests those who call for a full, public, and independent accounting of
the wounded, dead, and those imprisoned for participating in the spring
1989 demonstrations--including the Tiananmen Mothers Group;
Whereas the people of Hong Kong had held annual Tiananmen Square vigils since
1990 in Victoria Park, which were the only such mass gathering on
Chinese territory because commemorations of the event are banned in
mainland China;
Whereas the longstanding tradition of Hong Kong vigils came to an end in 2020
when Hong Kong police denied applications for assembly pretextually on
COVID-related grounds and then jailed key organizers of the annual event
on politically motivated criminal charges involving unlawful assembly or
national security;
Whereas Chow Hang-tung, Tang Ngok-kwan, and Tsui Hon-kwong--members of the Hong
Kong Alliance that organized the annual vigil--were convicted for
resisting police demand to surrender the personal information of
alliance members;
Whereas Hong Kong police arrested 24 prominent individuals, including Joshua
Wong, Gwyneth Ho, Jimmy Lai, and Lee Cheuk-yan on charges of unlawful
assembly or inciting unlawful assembly simply for showing up at Victoria
Park in 2020;
Whereas the central Government of the People's Republic of China and the
Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) have since
used the National Security Law imposed on the HKSAR in 2020 by the PRC's
National People's Congress Standing Committee to suppress peaceful
protests and democratic voices in Hong Kong, including by barring
candidates from standing for election and by arresting more than 1,000
pro-democracy activists and opposition leaders;
Whereas, in March 2024, the Hong Kong Legislative Council passed national
security legislation pursuant to Article 23 of the Basic Law, which
gives law enforcement additional powers to prosecute people on vague
charges, thereby augmenting the risk of arbitrary detention, including
the suppression of peaceful protests, vigils, and assemblies the Hong
Kong government does not like;
Whereas to protest censorship and harsh zero-COVID policy, mass protests in
November 2022 spurred the largest mass demonstrations in China since
1989;
Whereas these protests were in part spurred by the actions of Peng Lifa, also
called ``Bridgeman,'' who unfurled two banners over the Sitong Bridge in
Beijing which read ``We don't want Covid Tests, we want food. We don't
want Cultural Revolution, we want reform. We don't want lockdowns, we
want freedom. We don't want an autocrat, we want votes. We don't want
lies, we want dignity. We are citizens, not slaves.'';
Whereas Li Kangmeng, a university student, was reportedly the first person to
hold up a blank sheet of white paper to highlight pervasive censorship
in China, inspiring others to adopt this symbol as a form of protest--
giving a name to the 2022 protests as the ``White Paper Movement'';
Whereas Peng Lifa and Li Kangmeng remain in some from of detention, despite
being nominated by Members of the Congress for the Nobel Peace Prize;
Whereas an unknown amount of other people engaged in protest remain detained or
disappeared, including university student Kamile Wayit, who was
sentenced for ``extremism'' because she posted protest video on the
Chinese social media platform WeChat;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China continues to commit
gross violations of international-recognized human rights--through the
arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of pro-democracy activists,
members of ethnic groups, religious believers, human rights lawyers,
citizen journalists, and labor union leaders, among many others seeking
to express their political or religious views or ethnic identity in a
peaceful manner;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China is responsible for
genocide and crimes against humanity being committed against the Uyghurs
and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China has engaged in forced
collection of biometric information from Tibetans and separates Tibetan
children from their parents in colonial boarding schools, a practice
that may constitute crimes against humanity; and
Whereas Congress took steps, over the past 35 years, to remember the Tiananmen
demonstrations and their violent suppression because of the profound
impact the event has had on United States-People's Republic of China
relations and because commemorating Tiananmen was censored and banned in
China and now in Hong Kong: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) marks the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
protests and their violent suppression by recognizing the
solemn significance of the 1989 demonstrations and the impact
the Tiananmen Massacre has had on United States-People's
Republic of China relations;
(2) will continue to participate in somber remembrances for
the victims of the Tiananmen Massacre for as long as
commemorations are banned in the People's Republic of China;
(3) calls on the United States Government to--
(A) urge the Government of the People's Republic of
China to cease censoring information and discussion
about the Tiananmen Massacre and end efforts of
intimidation and surveillance against those seeking to
remember loved ones killed or missing or to commemorate
June 4, 1989, within China;
(B) seek the unconditional release of political
prisoners in the People's Republic of China, including
those such as Peng Lifa, Li Kangmeng, Kamile Wayit and
others arrested for peacefully engaging in protests in
China;
(C) demand the end of transnational repression
efforts in the United States targeting people from Hong
Kong, former Tiananmen student leaders, Uyghurs,
Tibetans, and others exercising fundamental freedoms
and free speech abroad;
(D) urge the Government of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (HKSAR) and authorities of the
Government of the People's Republic of China to--
(i) allow resumption of the annual vigil to
commemorate the Tiananmen Massacre in Hong
Kong;
(ii) release all political prisoners,
including Chow Hang-tung, Jimmy Lai, Joshua
Wong and others jailed in Hong Kong in part for
organizing or attending a Tiananmen vigil; and
(iii) lift the arrest ``bounties'' on the
people of Hong Kong who engage in peaceful pro-
democracy activities abroad;
(E) employ existing sanctions authorities for HKSAR
officials, including prosecutors and judges, complicit
in the undermining of Hong Kong high degree of autonomy
and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by
international law and treaty;
(F) use the voice, vote, and influence of the
United States at the United Nations to seek urgent
discussions of the human rights record of the
Government of the People's Republic of China and the
HKSAR at the United Nations Security Council and at the
United Nation's Human Rights Council; and
(G) make clear through public messaging campaigns
that the people of the United States want the people
living in the People's Republic of China to be able to
exercise all of their internationally-recognized human
rights without fear, and that efforts by the United
States Government to hold People's Republic of China
officials accountable for human rights abuses are
undertaken in solidarity with them and their
aspirations for liberty; and
(4) calls on Members of Congress to--
(A) issue public statements and arrange meetings
with participants of the Tiananmen Square protests who
live outside of China and the families and friends of
the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre based
outside China; and
(B) use the Political Prisoner Database maintained
by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for
information when raising political prisoner cases with
the Government of the People's Republic of China or
HKSAR officials.
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