thepoliblog

Remember, too, the Other Memorial Day

A Chinese Type 59 tank at the Beijing Military Museum. A Type 59 main battle tank on display at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in western Beijing. On June 3, 1989, People’s Liberation Army soldiers on Type 59 tanks began firing on civilian demonstrators at Muxidi near the military museum.
(Wikipedia) Photo by Max Smith.

Tiananmen Square Day (June 4, every year) memorializes the patriotic martyrs in China who were slain by tanks and by other means beginning on June 4, 1989, in Beijing and in other cities in China.

Recall Jeff Widener’s (Associated Press) astounding image of Tank Man, blocking a column of Type 59 tanks heading east on Beijing‘s Chang’an Boulevard (Avenue of Eternal Peace) near Tiananmen Square.

Nowadays Tiananmen Square Day also salutes

– those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Hong Kong,

– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Venezuela,

– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Iran,

– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Syria,

– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Egypt,

– and at so many other times and places.

To see more about Tiananmen Square Day, and to see how to honor both past and present martyrs for freedom, see here, and here, and here, and here.