The Chinese army had June 4, 1989 student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square (Tian’anmen Square) bloody crushed. After weeks of peaceful protests demanding political change and measures against state corruption, soldiers and tanks used violence against the demonstrators. It is still unclear how many people were killed. Amnesty International speaks of several hundred to several thousand victims.
The communist leadership in Beijing is making every effort to prevent this erasing massacres from collective memory. There is no information in history books, and references to it are being deleted from the Chinese Internet and online platforms. Discussion of what happened is practically forbidden.
The Special Administrative Zone Hong Kong was – apart from Macao – for decades the only place in China where a Commemorating the dead of Tian’anmen was still tolerated. Until two years ago, tens of thousands of people traditionally commemorated the dead of the massacre with a vigil in Victoria Park.
Image source: -/Kyodo/dpa