“Just as the Soviet Union attacked the press and television in Lithuania in 1991, the Chinese Communists are currently using deformation and infiltration in an attempt to crush press and other freedoms in Taiwan,” the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said on Facebook.
“Many Lithuanians who went to defend freedom at the time did not know whether they would return to life, but were aware of the importance of this struggle. The Taiwanese people share the same values,” the statement said.
It stresses that Taiwan is ready to “defend to the last”.
“We thank Lithuania for setting such a historic precedent in the fight for freedom and pay tribute to the victims,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Lithuania today commemorates the Defenders of Freedom Day, commemorating the events of 13 January 1991 in Vilnius and their victims.
This year marks 31 years since special Soviet troops seized the Vilnius Television Tower and the Television and Radio Committee and interrupted television and radio broadcasts in an attempt to overthrow the legally elected Lithuanian government, which had declared independence on 11 March 1990. Fourteen unarmed people were killed and several hundred were injured in bullets and under the tank tracks at the television tower.
At that time, the troops occupied the Lithuanian Television and Radio Committee, the Press House and other strategically important buildings, but thanks to non-violent Lithuanian resistance, they managed to keep the Supreme Council building, which was guarded by tens of thousands of people, and preserve Lithuanian statehood.
Lithuania’s relations with Taiwan have recently deepened, but communist China has put economic and diplomatic pressure on Lithuania in response.
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