China, Hong Kong scrub Tiananmen memories on anniversary
The Hindu
The police presence in Tiananmen Square was noticeably heavier than normal, with two to three times the regular number of officers visible on Saturday morning
There was heightened security around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Saturday, anniversary of the bloody 1989 crackdown, while police in Hong Kong warned people not to gather as China strives to remove all reminders of the events of June 4.
Discussion of the crackdown is highly sensitive to China’s communist leadership.
It has gone to exhaustive lengths to erase Tiananmen from collective memory, omitting it from history textbooks and censoring online discussion.
On June 4, 1989, the government sent troops and tanks to break up peaceful protests, crushing a weeks-long wave of demonstrations calling for political change and curbs on official corruption.
Hundreds, by some estimates more than 1,000, were killed in the crackdown.
On Saturday, authorities in Beijing had set up facial recognition devices at roads leading to the square and stopped passersby to check their identification, including a large group of cyclists who were made to individually scan their ID cards.
The police presence in the area was noticeably heavier than normal, with two to three times the regular number of officers visible on Saturday morning.
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