Tiananmen Mothers’ 2026 Spring Festival gathering was obstructed by the government

Tiananmen Mothers

Our Tiananmen Mothers group’s annual Spring Festival gathering was unreasonably blocked by the government and was prohibited from being held for the first time.

The New Year’s and Spring Festival gathering, which is the most important festival in China, was originally scheduled to be held on December 28, 2025, at a restaurant in Chongwenmen, Beijing. The bereaved families will actively participate as long as they are notified, provided their health conditions allow.

The ‘June Fourth’ tragedy is a pain that can never be erased from every family’s heart. Every year’s gathering will bring warmth to each bereaved family member, allowing their wounded hearts to receive emotional comfort from the same fate among the bereaved families. However, this humanistic care was canceled by the government’s public security using administrative means, such as interviews, without any legal basis.

36 years have passed, and many parents in our suffering group who lost their children have left this world with their regrets. Also, some wives, husbands, and disabled people who participated in the signing have also passed away due to illness. From the perspective of morality and humanity, their passing is very cruel to them.

The young wives who, in those years, single-handedly raised their young children and shouldered the burden of raising their children have all become elderly people over 60 years old. It is such a vulnerable group that, when deciding to hold the 2026 Spring Festival gathering, we not only did not see the government’s sincere initiation of a solution to the June Fourth tragedy and dialogue with us regarding the government’s indiscriminate killing of innocent people in the 1989 student movement, but instead saw the cold reality of the government’s public security abusing its public power to obstruct citizens’ legitimate social rights!

The Spring Festival gathering is a tradition of the Tiananmen Mothers group. It was initially a small gathering, and since the number of participants increased year by year, a restaurant was chosen for the gathering starting in 2009. On January 11, 2009, around noon, the Tiananmen Mothers in Beijing gathered from all directions of the city. This is a special family! When they met, they either shook hands or hugged each other, exchanging greetings and discussing their experiences. The atmosphere was exceptionally warm, and the intimacy was far beyond that of family. Among the attendees this year, some came from the distant suburbs and set off early in the morning to catch up. This year’s Spring Festival gathering had the largest number of participants ever, with a total of 42 people, and 6 of them were attending for the first time. The excitement of meeting so many bereaved friends for the first time was evident.

This is a description of the Tiananmen Mothers group’s gathering in 2009. Except for the three years of the 2020 pandemic, there has never been an interruption, until the 2026 Spring Festival gathering at the end of 2025 was canceled without reason.

Our gathering is just like the one described in 2009, where everyone meets to express their emotions. There is a joy of still being alive after so many years of suffering; there are memories of the ‘June Fourth’ tragedy that year, the harm it caused to the family, as if etched in everyone’s heart, unforgettable and unforgettable; when we part, we say goodbye and wish to see each other again next year. Which law or regulation of the government has been touched by such a gathering full of sadness, respect, and humanistic care? We cannot accept this for the Tiananmen Mothers group.