Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once referred to December 8, 1941 – the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – as “a date which will live in infamy”. But in Chinese-speaking regions, that same description aptly fits June 4, 1989 – the day the Chinese Communist Party violently clashed with pro-democracy protestors in Beijing with bloody results.

A group of women who lost their children on that fateful day – known as Luk Sei (Cantonese for June 4) locally, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in the western world, and, well, unmentionable in China – started the Tiananmen Mothers group in September 1989. Their aim was to keep the truth, which the Chinese government has tried to suppress, alive.

Twenty-one years on and Tiananmen Mothers’ quest is still ongoing. Forty-one-year-old Chu Mo Fong is a hardworking member of the Hong Kong branch. Although Chu didn’t lose relatives or friends on June 4, 1989, it was a day that changed her life nonetheless. “I was attending rallies in Hong Kong with my husband on June 4,” says Chu, a social worker at the Caritas Community Centre. “I remember seeing everything on television and shaking my head.”

She says that even though the incident didn’t cause her the same loss other members went through, she can relate. “I lost a younger brother many years ago when he went on vacation in Hainan islands and disappeared at sea,” she says. “I can see the hurt that these members of Tiananmen Mothers went through, and are still going through.”

Throughout the years, the group has sent open proposals to the National People’s Congress – China’s highest decision-making board – calling for four things: the right to mourn peacefully in public, no more persecution of Tiananmen protest participants, the release of all people imprisoned for their role of the incident, and a full public account of the event. To this day, the proposal still hasn’t been approved. In fact, the group claims to be harassed regularly by the government.

The Hong Kong branch has it much easier. Chu says that although they receive no support from the local government, they do not face resistance. However, she does claim that their group’s email server frequently “acts weird”. “We feel it may have been hacked by the Chinese government to monitor our emails,” says Chu. “We’ve decided to not send confidential information over email as a result.”

Whether it is paranoia or legitimate cause for concern, Chu and the Hong Kong branch continues to “seek justice and keep the truth alive”. Every year around late May and early June, they hold workshops and lectures at primary schools, and of course, set up camp at the annual Victoria Park rally.

Chu, who quit her job as an accountant shortly after the incident to become a social worker, says the most realistic goal now is to keep the facts and memory alive. “Most people under 25 do not remember the incident,” she says. “It’s sad. We don’t want to let China erase history. The truth must remain.”

Ben Sin

See Around Town feature for a full rundown of June 4 events.