Tienanmen Square Twenty Years Later

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the Tienanmen Square crackdown by the Chinese against protesters. That bloody crackdown included thousands of arrests, with many never to be heard from ever again. The Chinese government has made an ongoing effort of making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Chinese to learn about what happened at Tienanmen Square. They've blocked searches on the subject and do not teach it in school. Repression of the events are the name of the game.

China aggressively deterred dissent in the capital on Thursday's 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. But tens of thousands turned out for a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mourn the hundreds, possibly thousands, of demonstrators killed.

The central government ignored calls from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and even Taiwan's China-friendly president for Beijing to face up to the 1989 violence.

In Beijing, foreign journalists were barred from the vast square as uniformed and plainclothes police stood guard across the area, which 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. Plainclothes officers confronted journalists on the streets surrounding the square, cursing and threatening violence against them.

The repression on the mainland contrasted starkly with Hong Kong, where organizers said 150,000 people gathered in the city's famous Victoria Park in the largest commemoration on Chinese soil. Police had no immediate crowd estimate.

The situation today is unchanged from past years, including last year, the year before that or three years ago, as the Chinese government regularly conducts surveillance to thwart demonstrations commemorating the crackdown and had police and security out in force to thwart any kind of remembrance in the Square itself.



That man's identity has never been conclusively determined. His whereabouts are likewise unknown, but most human rights groups believe he was imprisoned and killed.

This video shows the violent crackdown in action:





UPDATE:
The NY Times has published a never-before seen photo of the man who stood up to the tanks. Even in this view, taken from street level behind him, you could see him calmly awaiting the encounter with the tanks. It's an amazing photo.