Day: June 4, 2009

Police swarm Tiananmen Square on anniversary

AP:
— “In Tiananmen Square, police were ready to pounce at the first sign of protest. In Hong Kong, a sea of candles flickered in the hands of tens of thousands who vented their grief and anger.”
— “Two starkly contrasting faces of China were on display Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the military’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators — from Beijing’s rigid control in suppressing any dissent, to freewheeling Hong Kong, which enjoys freedoms all but absent on the mainland.”
— “Tiananmen Square was blanketed by uniformed and plainclothes security officers who were ready to silence any potential demonstration, and there were few hints that the vast plaza was the epicenter of a student-led movement that was crushed on June 3-4, 1989, shocking the world.”
— “Police barred foreign journalists from entering the square and threatened them with violence, even barring them from covering the daily raising of China’s national flag.”
— “Dissidents and families of victims were confined to their homes or forced to leave Beijing, part of sweeping government efforts to prevent online debate or organized commemorations of the anniversary.”
— “The extraordinary security in Beijing came after government censors shut down social networking and image-sharing Web sites such as Twitter and Flickr and blacked out CNN and other foreign news channels each time they showed stories about Tiananmen.”
— “‘We’ve been under 24-hour surveillance for a week and aren’t able to leave home to mourn. It’s totally inhuman,’ said Xu Jue, whose son was 22 when he was shot in the chest by soldiers and bled to death on June 4, 1989.”
— “Police were also stationed outside the home of Wang Yannan, the daughter of Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader deposed for sympathizing with the pro-democracy protesters, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. Wang has never been politically active.”

See also:
— June 4 – Estimated 150,000 Call for Democracy in Hong Kong

(Tibet) Dalai Lama honors Tiananmen dead

— “Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, paid tribute Thursday to those killed in the Tiananmen Square crackdown and urged China’s leaders to review the events that led to the bloodshed.”

China blocks any commemoration of Tiananmen crackdown
— AFP: “China blanketed Tiananmen Square with police and security forces, blocking any attempt to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the deadly crackdown on mass democracy protests.”
— “The government again defended the decision to put down the demonstrations, leaving hundreds and perhaps thousands dead, and firmly dismissed a US demand for a public accounting of the events of June 3-4, 1989”
— “Tens of thousands of people were expected to commemorate the anniversary around the world but the only major event on Chinese soil was to take place nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away in semi-autonomous Hong Kong”
— “An AFP TV journalist was ordered by police to delete footage from his camera, and local tourists near the square were reluctant to discuss the crackdown — a subject that remains taboo”

Tiananmen 20th anniversary brings new repression
— AP: “Chinese police aggressively deterred dissent on Thursday’s 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square”
— “Foreign journalists were barred from the vast square as uniformed and plainclothes police stood guard across the vast plaza that was the epicenter of the student-led movement that was crushed by the military on the night of June 3-4, 1989”
— “Security officials checking passports also blocked foreign TV camera operators and photographers from entering the square to cover the raising of China’s national flag, which happens at dawn every day. Plain clothes officers aggressively confronted journalists on the streets surrounding the square, cursing and threatening violence against them.”

Tiananmen protester still defiant
— CNN: “If 63-year-old Chinese scholar Zhou Dou had his way, he would be on hunger strike on June 4, sitting quietly through the day at Purple Bamboo Park, 20 minutes’ taxi ride from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.”
— “His aim: to mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown and to dramatize his defiant call for answers from Chinese authorities.”
— “‘What is the truth?’ he pressed rhetorically, as he discussed his plans with CNN a week earlier. ‘How many people were in fact robbed of their lives? The truth remains unknown, because the Chinese government has suppressed information about the truth on June 4th.'”

Exiled Tiananmen dissident back in Taiwan
— “One of the main student leaders from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests was deported to Taiwan on Thursday after failing to enter Macau and turn himself in to the Chinese government.”
— “‘I am deeply saddened that I have not been able to see my family for 20 years and that my intention to return by turning myself in was barred,’ Wu’er Kaixi told reporters after arriving at an airport outside Taipei.”