Tiananmen Square Massacre Candlelight Vigil 2025

Every year, VOC commemorates what happened on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese Communist Party crushed a massive pro-democracy movement by sending tanks into Tiananmen Square. Beijing has since erased all mention of June 4 from its history. We still do not know the death toll.

This year, attendees had the privilege of hearing speeches and testimonies from:

• VOC President and CEO Dr. Eric Patterson
• Campaign for Uyghurs’ Rushan Abbas
• Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders’ Sophie Richardson
• Congressional Executive Committee on China’s Piero Tozzi
• Scholar of Tiananmen and author of Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China’s Rowena He
• Uyghur Human Rights Project’s Louisa Greve
• The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation’s Frances Hui
• Office of Tibet’s Tsultrim Gyatso
• International Campaign for Tibet’s Bhuchung K. Tsering
• June 4th Massacre Memorial Association’s David Yu

Speeches were followed by a moment of silence for the victims of Tiananmen Square and Communism as a whole.