BEIJING — A quarter-century after the movement’s suppression, China’s communist authorities oversee a raft of measures for muzzling dissent and preventing protests.
They range from the sophisticated — extensive monitoring of online debate and control over media — to the relatively simple — routine harassment of government critics and maintenance of a massive domestic security force.
The system has proven hugely successful: No major opposition movement has gotten even a hint of traction in the 25 years since Tiananmen. President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping seems intent on ensuring things stay that way.
‘‘It’s extremely bad right now, much worse than in past years,’’ said veteran dissident Yin Weihong, who spent several months in prison for his role as a student leader during the 1989 protests. ‘‘There’s less and less space for civil society or, if you’re like me, even to just live your life freely.’’
Each year’s anniversary brings a crackdown on dissent, but this year has been especially harsh, say dissidents and human rights groups. Lawyers and others taking part in even minor private commemorations have been detained. Outspoken relatives of those killed in the crackdown have been forced out of Beijing.
Journalists, including those in the foreign media, have been issued stern orders not to report on unspecified sensitive topics around the June 4 anniversary, with warnings of dire consequences.
***********
Caught unaware and unready to respond to the Tiananmen protests, China now anticipates, detects, and chokes off political and social activism before it can challenge authorities. Despite a huge rise in prosperity and vast social changes, political activism and organization outside the control of the ruling Communist Party is forbidden.
‘‘The authorities are very careful to nip any potential dissent in the bud at the local level, the focus being on ensuring they can’t link up and become a nationwide movement,’’ said Human Rights Watch Asia researcher Maya Wang.
Like spying on antiwar protesters?
Yin said China’s human rights conditions have deteriorated since party stalwart Xi’s appointment as general secretary in late 2012. While going after corrupt officials, Xi has demanded strict ideological orthodoxy and pushed a campaign to denigrate liberal values such as Western-style constitutional democracy and the independence of the media.
Government critics and public intellectuals face intrusive harassment, Yin said. Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, is under house arrest and constant supervision. An unknown number of others can leave home or work only with permission.
Some veteran activists say the room for independent organization is tighter than it was in 1989. A limited number of nominally nongovernmental organizations are permitted, but they operate only at the pleasure of the authorities and must confine themselves to nonpolitical issues such as environmentalism, child welfare, and workers’ rights.
Sounds so familiar to me here in AmeriKa!
I mean, those are the same controlled-opposition protests that are allowed and encouraged by the agenda-pushing pre$$, as opposed to those stinky Occupy kids and antiwar rabble.
Hey, don't get me wrong; I love the corporate liberalism that is worse than communism.
Meanwhile, the state has developed increasingly sophisticated mechanisms of surveillance and censorship, taking advantage of technological improvements and a huge boost in domestic security spending. An army of young, computer-savvy censors checks social media and websites and removes content on sensitive topics.
Related:
NSA Unlocking Your Secrets
Hacker Helped FBI
The difference between us and China is this government floods you with information, much of it deceptive.
Users of social media such as the hugely popular microblogging and instant-messaging applications Weibo and QQ must be registered and identified.
That is where we are headed, Americans!
--more--"
"China detains Tiananmen protester | Associated Press June 03, 2014
BEIJING — Guo Jian, a Chinese-born Australian artist and former protester in China’s 1989 prodemocracy movement, was taken away by Chinese authorities over the weekend, shortly after a profile of him appeared in the Financial Times newspaper.
The profile was in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the military clampdown on the student protest centered around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. As he was taken from his home in suburban Beijing on Sunday night, Guo said he would be held by police until June 15.
It is the latest in a string of detentions of artists, lawyers, scholars, and journalists ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary amid intense government efforts to deter coverage by foreign media of its remembrance.
After a stint as a soldier, Guo was studying art in Beijing when he was swept into the 1989 student protests and witnessed the military crackdown that began on the night of June 3, 1989.
‘‘I didn’t believe it, even though I had been a soldier,’’ Guo was quoted as saying in an article published in the Financial Times last week. ‘‘In the army I had never seen that sort of violence. Then I saw the tracers and people falling around me — they were just gone.’’
Discussions of the protest and its military suppression are taboo in China, and authorities tighten security ahead of the anniversary each year. But this year’s suppression has been harsher than in previous years, as police round up activists who had received no more than warnings in the past.
Related: DeGroot’s Disrespect
Since early May, the authorities have detained or put under house arrest dozens of people, including human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, in an attempt to prevent any commemoration. Other activists have been warned by the authorities not to speak to foreign media.
Police also have cautioned foreign journalists not to cover any sensitive issues leading up to the anniversary or face ‘‘serious consequences.’’
In response, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said: ‘‘This effort to deter news coverage is a gross violation of Chinese government rules governing foreign correspondents, which expressly permit them to interview anybody who consents to be interviewed.’’
The European Union also expressed its concern.
Yeah, well, I'm tired of torturing governments and their mouthpiece's spew.
--more--"
"Security tight on eve of Tiananmen anniversary" by Christopher Bodeen | Associated Press June 04, 2014
BEIJING — Beijing put additional police on the streets and detained government critics Tuesday as part of a security crackdown on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the crushing of prodemocracy protests centered on the capital’s Tiananmen Square.
I wonder if my propaganda press will spend as much time on an Occupy protest.
Once again, I smell controlled opposition and public relations imagery and illusion. The allowing of dissent, as it were.
Police manned checkpoints as officers and paramilitary troops patrolled pedestrian overpasses and streets surrounding the square.
The increased security comes on top of heightened restrictions on political activists, artists, lawyers, and other government critics. Dozens have been taken into detention, forced out of Beijing, or confined to their homes in other parts of the country.
‘‘June 4 has come again and the plainclothes officers are here to protect us. I can’t leave the house to travel or lecture,’’ Jiangsu province-based environmental activist Wu Lihong said in a text message.
Artist and former activist Guo Jian was also taken away by authorities on Sunday night, shortly after a profile of him appeared in the Financial Times newspaper in commemoration of the crackdown’s anniversary. As he was being detained, Guo, an Australian citizen, told an Associated Press reporter he would be held until June 15.
A writer and officer of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, who writes under the name Ye Du, was also taken from his home in the southern city of Guangzhou to join a forced ‘‘tour trip,’’ his wife, Wan Haitao, said by phone. Such compulsory trips are a common method of keeping government critics under 24-hour watch without the need to initiate legal proceedings.
In an apparent sign of government nervousness, connections to the global Internet appeared to have been disrupted, with Google’s mail and other services mostly inaccessible. China already routinely blocks popular overseas social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube and heavily censors Chinese sites for politically sensitive content.
I'll remember that when it happens here as the U.S. economic system collapses.
Related: Former CIA director Panetta: Major cybercrimes are acts of war
Then the U.S. is guilty! It would be funny were it not so sad.
China allows no public discussion of the events of June 3-4, 1989, when soldiers accompanied by tanks and armored personnel carriers fought their way into the heart of the city, killing hundreds of unarmed protesters and onlookers. The government has never issued a complete, formal accounting of the crackdown and the number of casualties.
Beijing’s official verdict is that the student-led protests aimed to topple the ruling Communist Party and plunge China into chaos.
I view it as another in a long line of U.S. destabilization campaigns and attempted overthrows, and the attention it is getting from the agenda-pushing propaganda pre$$ only confirms it.
Protest leaders said they were merely seeking greater democracy and freedom, along with an end to corruption and favoritism within the party.
Asked about the crackdown at a regularly scheduled news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei did not refer directly to Tiananmen Square or the military crackdown.
‘‘Regarding the political incident which happened in the late 1980s in China, as well as issues related to it, the Chinese government reached a conclusion a long time ago,’’ Hong said before launching into a defense of China’s economic reforms that have created a burgeoning middle class amid relative political stability.
Hong also denied cases of political persecution, saying: ‘‘In China, there are only law offenders. The so-called dissidents as you mentioned do not exist.’’
Authorities regularly tighten security ahead of June 4, but this year’s suppression is notably harsher than in the past. Activists who previously received no more than a warning have been taken into custody and police have told foreign journalists they would face unspecified serious consequences for covering sensitive issues ahead of the anniversary.
‘‘I urge the Chinese authorities to immediately release those detained for the exercise of their human right to freedom of expression,’’ UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in a statement Tuesday. She also criticized authorities’ restrictions on social media and the press for the anniversary.
Pillay called for a truth-seeking process into the events a quarter-century ago. ‘‘It is in the interests of everyone to finally establish the facts surrounding the Tiananmen Square incidents,’’ she said.
Let's get one going for 9/11 first, 'kay?
--more--"
"Twenty-five years after Tiananmen Square, the world takes note" June 04, 2014
With the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre today, the Chinese government has doubled down on its efforts to prevent commemorations of the event. For years, Beijing censored any discussion of the pro-democracy protest and the subsequent attack that killed hundreds of unarmed protesters. But the party’s fabled “Great Firewall” is cracking; despite a sophisticated Internet censorship apparatus, many tech-savvy Internet users in China have learned how to illegally access foreign news sources that have chronicled the massacre and its aftermath.
It is kind of fun to read editorials from either delusional or disingenuous elites sometimes. The chutzpah of the hypocrisy is something to behold.
Rather than give up, though, Beijing has added a new weapon to its censorship arsenal: If the government can’t control Internet users, it may still be able to control the Internet.
That is what pours is trying to do here!
This year, the government has stepped up threats against foreign news sources that mark the anniversary, warning of “serious consequences” for reporters who cover it.
I'm tired of the $elf-$erving bitching from propagandists, too.
Foreign media organizations with bureaus in China have little choice but to take that saber-rattling seriously, since Beijing has followed through on similar threats in the past. In recent years, the Chinese government has grown more assertive in setting rules for foreign journalists and then revoking visas for correspondents who run afoul of its wishes.
Then let's make war on them.
But the global media should stand tall in its rejection of China’s tactics, and today’s world-wide acknowledgment of the Tiananmen Square anniversary will send an important message to Chinese civilians — and the censors in their ruling party.
I think they should sit the f*** down!
--more--"
Related: Hong Kong marks Tiananmen Square anniversary with vigil
"25 years later, Tiananmen Square largely quiet" by William Wan and Simon Denyer | Washington Post June 05, 2014
BEIJING — It was a quiet day in Tiananmen Square. Even as tens of thousands gathered in Hong Kong on Wednesday and global headlines marked the 25th anniversary of China’s brutal crackdown on student protesters, there was no trace of remembrance at the site of their killing.
Tourists posed for pictures below the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong. Children ran laughing through the square.
The only sign of that day’s effects: swarms of police patrolling the square and stationed every few hundred feet on the roads leading up to it.
For weeks, as the anniversary approached, security in Beijing grew tighter. Foreign journalists were called in and warned. Officials mobilized tens of thousands of informants to look for suspicious activity, according to state media. Authorities jailed or forced out of the city dissidents most likely to criticize the government.
The repressive tactics this year began earlier and were more extensive, a sign that the party views the historical event as an enduring threat.
In hushed interviews at the square Wednesday, some demonstrated just how effectively the party has quashed public memory of a crackdown that killed hundreds, if not thousands. Many claimed to have no memory of the massacre or were too afraid to respond.
Problem with Amerikans is most of them too stooped to respond.
‘‘Today? What is special about today?’’ a tourist, 41, from Hunan province answered in response to a query. When pressed whether he had not heard about an incident in 1989, he said nervously, ‘‘Oh, you mean the student protest back then? That was today? I had forgotten all about it.’’ He then quickly walked away.
Three local college students — among the few willing to acknowledge and talk openly about the massacre — said they had come to the square out of curiosity. Several police officers hovered nearby.
That's where the Globe's website ended it?
My printed paper article continued thusly:
“Of course we know about June Fourth. It’s an open secret in China,” said one of the students, standing in the spot that 25 years earlier had been packed by a sea of protesters his age demanding political change.
But just because they knew about the massacre didn’t necessarily mean they agreed with the protesters.
“It was an irrational decision. Was it worth it to bleed and be killed for such a cause?” the student said.
Many former protesters , who witnessed those deaths, blame such reactions on the government’s propaganda, with classes and textbooks casting the 1989 protests as counterrevolutionary riots that threatened the country.
I'm kind of sick of reading it, can you tell?
“This is why we, the survivors, must try our best to tell the next generation about our experience and help them achieve progress without sacrificing as much as we did,” said Xiang Xiaoji, 57, a former protester who now lives in New York.
In stark contrast to the silence in Beijing, tens of thousands in Hong Kong converged Wednesday night on Victoria Park for a candlelight vigil. Organizers said more than 180,000 people participated. The territory, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but has a separate political system and greater liberties, has been a focal point of Tiananmen commemorations.
Under Hong Kong’s looming skyscrapers, rally organizers read out the names of those who died in the protests 25 years ago, including a 9-year-old girl. A wreath was laid beside replicas of the Monument to the People’s Heroes at Tiananmen Square and the Goddess of Democracy statue erected by protesters in 1989.
Speaking to the crowd, Teng Biao, a prominent human rights lawyer from the mainland, said that despite the many killed in Tiananmen, more have stood up for their rights in China. “You can’t kill us all,” he said.
Holding up candles, the crowd at one point repeated two chants: “Pass on this spirit from generation to generation” and “Fight to the end.”
One speaker, Lee Cheuk Yan, linked Tiananmen to Hong Kong’s struggles for democracy under Beijing rule. “The evil claw of Communist dictatorship is digging its way into our city, suppressing freedom, stepping up interference, manipulating the promised democratic elections,” he said.
In a statement, the White House said: “Twenty-five years later, the United States continues to honor the memories of those who gave their lives in and around Tiananmen Square . . . and we call on Chinese authorities to account for those killed, detained, or missing.”
Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, demanded that the United States “stop making irresponsible remarks related to issues of China’s internal affairs.” Hong said China had given its people great economic growth in the past 25 years.
Meanwhile, China’s repression of Tiananmen talk was also heavy online. Google’s search engine and applications were largely inaccessible this week, apparently the handiwork of authorities. The Chinese- and English-language Web sites of the Wall Street Journal also were blocked in recent days. Users of the professional networking site LinkedIn complained that it was censoring Tiananmen-related posts.
That is where the print ended.
--more--"
Time to move on.
"China detains Tiananmen protester | Associated Press June 03, 2014
BEIJING — Guo Jian, a Chinese-born Australian artist and former protester in China’s 1989 prodemocracy movement, was taken away by Chinese authorities over the weekend, shortly after a profile of him appeared in the Financial Times newspaper.
The profile was in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the military clampdown on the student protest centered around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. As he was taken from his home in suburban Beijing on Sunday night, Guo said he would be held by police until June 15.
It is the latest in a string of detentions of artists, lawyers, scholars, and journalists ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary amid intense government efforts to deter coverage by foreign media of its remembrance.
After a stint as a soldier, Guo was studying art in Beijing when he was swept into the 1989 student protests and witnessed the military crackdown that began on the night of June 3, 1989.
‘‘I didn’t believe it, even though I had been a soldier,’’ Guo was quoted as saying in an article published in the Financial Times last week. ‘‘In the army I had never seen that sort of violence. Then I saw the tracers and people falling around me — they were just gone.’’
Discussions of the protest and its military suppression are taboo in China, and authorities tighten security ahead of the anniversary each year. But this year’s suppression has been harsher than in previous years, as police round up activists who had received no more than warnings in the past.
Related: DeGroot’s Disrespect
Since early May, the authorities have detained or put under house arrest dozens of people, including human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, in an attempt to prevent any commemoration. Other activists have been warned by the authorities not to speak to foreign media.
Police also have cautioned foreign journalists not to cover any sensitive issues leading up to the anniversary or face ‘‘serious consequences.’’
In response, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said: ‘‘This effort to deter news coverage is a gross violation of Chinese government rules governing foreign correspondents, which expressly permit them to interview anybody who consents to be interviewed.’’
The European Union also expressed its concern.
Yeah, well, I'm tired of torturing governments and their mouthpiece's spew.
--more--"
"Security tight on eve of Tiananmen anniversary" by Christopher Bodeen | Associated Press June 04, 2014
BEIJING — Beijing put additional police on the streets and detained government critics Tuesday as part of a security crackdown on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the crushing of prodemocracy protests centered on the capital’s Tiananmen Square.
I wonder if my propaganda press will spend as much time on an Occupy protest.
Once again, I smell controlled opposition and public relations imagery and illusion. The allowing of dissent, as it were.
Police manned checkpoints as officers and paramilitary troops patrolled pedestrian overpasses and streets surrounding the square.
The increased security comes on top of heightened restrictions on political activists, artists, lawyers, and other government critics. Dozens have been taken into detention, forced out of Beijing, or confined to their homes in other parts of the country.
‘‘June 4 has come again and the plainclothes officers are here to protect us. I can’t leave the house to travel or lecture,’’ Jiangsu province-based environmental activist Wu Lihong said in a text message.
Artist and former activist Guo Jian was also taken away by authorities on Sunday night, shortly after a profile of him appeared in the Financial Times newspaper in commemoration of the crackdown’s anniversary. As he was being detained, Guo, an Australian citizen, told an Associated Press reporter he would be held until June 15.
A writer and officer of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, who writes under the name Ye Du, was also taken from his home in the southern city of Guangzhou to join a forced ‘‘tour trip,’’ his wife, Wan Haitao, said by phone. Such compulsory trips are a common method of keeping government critics under 24-hour watch without the need to initiate legal proceedings.
In an apparent sign of government nervousness, connections to the global Internet appeared to have been disrupted, with Google’s mail and other services mostly inaccessible. China already routinely blocks popular overseas social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube and heavily censors Chinese sites for politically sensitive content.
I'll remember that when it happens here as the U.S. economic system collapses.
Related: Former CIA director Panetta: Major cybercrimes are acts of war
Then the U.S. is guilty! It would be funny were it not so sad.
China allows no public discussion of the events of June 3-4, 1989, when soldiers accompanied by tanks and armored personnel carriers fought their way into the heart of the city, killing hundreds of unarmed protesters and onlookers. The government has never issued a complete, formal accounting of the crackdown and the number of casualties.
Beijing’s official verdict is that the student-led protests aimed to topple the ruling Communist Party and plunge China into chaos.
I view it as another in a long line of U.S. destabilization campaigns and attempted overthrows, and the attention it is getting from the agenda-pushing propaganda pre$$ only confirms it.
Protest leaders said they were merely seeking greater democracy and freedom, along with an end to corruption and favoritism within the party.
Asked about the crackdown at a regularly scheduled news conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei did not refer directly to Tiananmen Square or the military crackdown.
‘‘Regarding the political incident which happened in the late 1980s in China, as well as issues related to it, the Chinese government reached a conclusion a long time ago,’’ Hong said before launching into a defense of China’s economic reforms that have created a burgeoning middle class amid relative political stability.
Hong also denied cases of political persecution, saying: ‘‘In China, there are only law offenders. The so-called dissidents as you mentioned do not exist.’’
Authorities regularly tighten security ahead of June 4, but this year’s suppression is notably harsher than in the past. Activists who previously received no more than a warning have been taken into custody and police have told foreign journalists they would face unspecified serious consequences for covering sensitive issues ahead of the anniversary.
‘‘I urge the Chinese authorities to immediately release those detained for the exercise of their human right to freedom of expression,’’ UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in a statement Tuesday. She also criticized authorities’ restrictions on social media and the press for the anniversary.
Pillay called for a truth-seeking process into the events a quarter-century ago. ‘‘It is in the interests of everyone to finally establish the facts surrounding the Tiananmen Square incidents,’’ she said.
Let's get one going for 9/11 first, 'kay?
--more--"
"Twenty-five years after Tiananmen Square, the world takes note" June 04, 2014
With the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre today, the Chinese government has doubled down on its efforts to prevent commemorations of the event. For years, Beijing censored any discussion of the pro-democracy protest and the subsequent attack that killed hundreds of unarmed protesters. But the party’s fabled “Great Firewall” is cracking; despite a sophisticated Internet censorship apparatus, many tech-savvy Internet users in China have learned how to illegally access foreign news sources that have chronicled the massacre and its aftermath.
It is kind of fun to read editorials from either delusional or disingenuous elites sometimes. The chutzpah of the hypocrisy is something to behold.
Rather than give up, though, Beijing has added a new weapon to its censorship arsenal: If the government can’t control Internet users, it may still be able to control the Internet.
That is what pours is trying to do here!
This year, the government has stepped up threats against foreign news sources that mark the anniversary, warning of “serious consequences” for reporters who cover it.
I'm tired of the $elf-$erving bitching from propagandists, too.
Foreign media organizations with bureaus in China have little choice but to take that saber-rattling seriously, since Beijing has followed through on similar threats in the past. In recent years, the Chinese government has grown more assertive in setting rules for foreign journalists and then revoking visas for correspondents who run afoul of its wishes.
Then let's make war on them.
But the global media should stand tall in its rejection of China’s tactics, and today’s world-wide acknowledgment of the Tiananmen Square anniversary will send an important message to Chinese civilians — and the censors in their ruling party.
I think they should sit the f*** down!
--more--"
Related: Hong Kong marks Tiananmen Square anniversary with vigil
"25 years later, Tiananmen Square largely quiet" by William Wan and Simon Denyer | Washington Post June 05, 2014
BEIJING — It was a quiet day in Tiananmen Square. Even as tens of thousands gathered in Hong Kong on Wednesday and global headlines marked the 25th anniversary of China’s brutal crackdown on student protesters, there was no trace of remembrance at the site of their killing.
Tourists posed for pictures below the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong. Children ran laughing through the square.
The only sign of that day’s effects: swarms of police patrolling the square and stationed every few hundred feet on the roads leading up to it.
For weeks, as the anniversary approached, security in Beijing grew tighter. Foreign journalists were called in and warned. Officials mobilized tens of thousands of informants to look for suspicious activity, according to state media. Authorities jailed or forced out of the city dissidents most likely to criticize the government.
The repressive tactics this year began earlier and were more extensive, a sign that the party views the historical event as an enduring threat.
In hushed interviews at the square Wednesday, some demonstrated just how effectively the party has quashed public memory of a crackdown that killed hundreds, if not thousands. Many claimed to have no memory of the massacre or were too afraid to respond.
Problem with Amerikans is most of them too stooped to respond.
‘‘Today? What is special about today?’’ a tourist, 41, from Hunan province answered in response to a query. When pressed whether he had not heard about an incident in 1989, he said nervously, ‘‘Oh, you mean the student protest back then? That was today? I had forgotten all about it.’’ He then quickly walked away.
Three local college students — among the few willing to acknowledge and talk openly about the massacre — said they had come to the square out of curiosity. Several police officers hovered nearby.
That's where the Globe's website ended it?
My printed paper article continued thusly:
“Of course we know about June Fourth. It’s an open secret in China,” said one of the students, standing in the spot that 25 years earlier had been packed by a sea of protesters his age demanding political change.
But just because they knew about the massacre didn’t necessarily mean they agreed with the protesters.
“It was an irrational decision. Was it worth it to bleed and be killed for such a cause?” the student said.
Many former protesters , who witnessed those deaths, blame such reactions on the government’s propaganda, with classes and textbooks casting the 1989 protests as counterrevolutionary riots that threatened the country.
I'm kind of sick of reading it, can you tell?
“This is why we, the survivors, must try our best to tell the next generation about our experience and help them achieve progress without sacrificing as much as we did,” said Xiang Xiaoji, 57, a former protester who now lives in New York.
In stark contrast to the silence in Beijing, tens of thousands in Hong Kong converged Wednesday night on Victoria Park for a candlelight vigil. Organizers said more than 180,000 people participated. The territory, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but has a separate political system and greater liberties, has been a focal point of Tiananmen commemorations.
Under Hong Kong’s looming skyscrapers, rally organizers read out the names of those who died in the protests 25 years ago, including a 9-year-old girl. A wreath was laid beside replicas of the Monument to the People’s Heroes at Tiananmen Square and the Goddess of Democracy statue erected by protesters in 1989.
Speaking to the crowd, Teng Biao, a prominent human rights lawyer from the mainland, said that despite the many killed in Tiananmen, more have stood up for their rights in China. “You can’t kill us all,” he said.
Holding up candles, the crowd at one point repeated two chants: “Pass on this spirit from generation to generation” and “Fight to the end.”
One speaker, Lee Cheuk Yan, linked Tiananmen to Hong Kong’s struggles for democracy under Beijing rule. “The evil claw of Communist dictatorship is digging its way into our city, suppressing freedom, stepping up interference, manipulating the promised democratic elections,” he said.
In a statement, the White House said: “Twenty-five years later, the United States continues to honor the memories of those who gave their lives in and around Tiananmen Square . . . and we call on Chinese authorities to account for those killed, detained, or missing.”
Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, demanded that the United States “stop making irresponsible remarks related to issues of China’s internal affairs.” Hong said China had given its people great economic growth in the past 25 years.
Meanwhile, China’s repression of Tiananmen talk was also heavy online. Google’s search engine and applications were largely inaccessible this week, apparently the handiwork of authorities. The Chinese- and English-language Web sites of the Wall Street Journal also were blocked in recent days. Users of the professional networking site LinkedIn complained that it was censoring Tiananmen-related posts.
That is where the print ended.
--more--"
Time to move on.
