Beijing, China — After exactly 20 years back, on June 4, 1989, the Chinese Red Army opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, resulting in the loss of hundreds–if not thousands–of innocent lives. However, the Chinese authorities have tightened security on Wednesday ahead of the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, and blocked access to Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, and its Hotmail email service and Twitter Inc.’s Internet social-networking service.
Security continues to be stepped up at Tiananmen Square ahead of Thursday’s anniversary [EPA]
Black police vans prowled through the borders of the Forbidden City, while police and paramilitary forces patrolled through crowds of tourists enjoying a sunny summer morning.
At pre-dawn, on June 4, 1989, tanks were rolled into Tiananmen Square to suppress weeks of student and worker protests. The ruling Communist Party, which has never released a death toll, fears that any commemoration of the crackdown could challenge its continuing hold on power. But according to countless mute images, most of the slain were students. However, the Chinese government prefers for the younger generations in China and the rest of the world to know very little about that.
“Business is poor today. You would think most people are tourists but they are not, they are plainclothes security,” said a trinket peddler surnamed Li, before a plainclothes policeman told her to stop talking to foreigners.
“They are scared there will be a big blow-up because of tomorrow, but I do not think anything will happen.”
This is the most iconic image from the Tiananmen Square protest and subsequent massacre. (Credit: Wikipedia) [Click to enlarge].
Chairman Mao Zedong’s mausoleum, in the center of the square, was closed for “equipment repairs” from Wednesday through Friday, according to a hastily scrawled handpainted sign.
This is another hair-raising scene of the tragic day, and to-date China’s state media has stayed firmly silent about the anniversary [AFP/File photo]
Countless media reports verified that in the recent days leading up to the anniversary, China has been blocking Web sites like Twitter, Yahoo’s Flickr, YouTube, Microsoft Hotmail, Live.com, WordPress, Blogger, and many other social-networking sites and news outlets in an effort to keep the event an internal issue.
Internet users in mainland China have reported inaccessibility to Hong Kong-based Web sites including the newspaper Apple Daily and Yahoo! Hong Kong News, which do not comply with the Chinese government’s ban on mentioning June 4, 1989 publicly.
Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based media censorship watchdog, said it has been receiving reports from Chinese users since early on Tuesday of the escalating web shutdown.
China, home to the world’s largest online population, routinely blocks access to sites it deems potentially subversive at sensitive times. Although, the current blockade seems to be one of the most wide-ranging yet aimed at stopping online discussion of the Tiananmen protests.
“Twenty years later, it is still impossible for the Chinese media to refer freely to the ruthless suppression of China’s pro-democracy movement in June 1989,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
“The information blackout has been enforced so effectively for 20 years that most young Chinese are completely unaware of this major event.”
The Communist Party commands all domestic media and blocks access to Web sites criticizing it or publishing articles it deems unfavorable. That has forced China’s estimated 316 million Internet users, the world’s largest online population, to employ code words on sites such as Twitter to memorialize the event without triggering government censorship.
“You are seeing more of a restriction on the social media sites,” said Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution and a former Columbia University professor who is based in Beijing. For the government, social-networking sites are “where most of the concerns are in terms of people mobilizing or spreading information.”
Television broadcasts of CNN went blank today in Shanghai and Beijing while the station was playing a segment on the Tiananmen anniversary.
Cryptic messages have popped up on San Francisco-based Twitter in recent weeks asking Internet users in China to turn their Web logs gray to commemorate the crackdown, referring to it as “May 35th,” “535” or “VIIV” — Roman numerals signifying June 4.
About 30 people are still serving prison sentences for their activities in 1989, according to the San Francisco-based human rights organization Dui Hua. Others are in prison for continued activism after their initial release.
Hundreds of other protest leaders are in permanent exile.
Police prevented at least four foreign television crews from filming on Tiananmen Square in the week before the anniversary.
Administrators at Chinese universities have been orderd to keep a close watch on foreigners in their departments. Taxi drivers were instructed to watch out for suspicious passengers, especially those headed toward Tiananmen Square.
Zeng Jinyan, the wife of imprisoned AIDS activist Hu Jia, was stopped on Wednesday from leaving her home, where she and their baby daughter have been kept under tight surveillance for over a year.
Liu Zhengrong, the State Council Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau’s deputy director general, did not responded calls to his office today. The Chinese government bureau has not replied to a faxed request for comment on Internet censorship sent two days ago.