Wednesday, June 4, 2014

China: Tiananmen 25th anniversary

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; )
Artist/activist's rendition of the famous "Tank Man," the brave Chinese citizen who stood up to state and corporate power by famously placing his body between a tank and Tienanmen.


China tightens security in Beijing on Tienanmen [massacre's] 25th anniversary
Police state cameras, Tienanmen today
Human rights advocates say it’s only a matter of time before government recognizes killings of pro-democracy protesters.

Human-rights advocates reported unprecedented security measures at China’s Tienanmen Square on Wednesday that barred Chinese from marking the 25th anniversary of pro-democracy protests there that ended with a government crackdown killing hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.
 
Gearing up for Tiananmen 2.0
Eyewitnesses in Beijing reported that access to the square, a symbol of the Chinese Communist Party’s nearly 65-year rule, had been restricted. Walking from Beijing’s Wangfujin shopping district a little over half a mile to Tienanmen, Twitter user Ban Yue Ban posted photos of three checkpoints he had to pass, with law enforcement officials checking his identification and searching his bag.

The human rights monitoring organization Amnesty International reported that 48 known dissidents -- including activists, lawyers, and artists -- had disappeared or been detained by authorities ahead of the June 4 anniversary. [The U.S. government's spying apparatus known as] Google and a number of other websites were blocked ahead of the day.
 
Chinese youth reflect on Tienanmen Square 25 years later 
Comrade, are you wearing eyeliner? - Maybe.
Renowned Chinese human rights advocate Hu Jia told Al Jazeera, while under detention in his Beijing home, that he hoped Chinese would still “return to the square” to achieve what he believes are China’s inevitable objectives of democracy and rule of law.
 
NRA calls open-carry gun demos foolish
But by late afternoon in Beijing, it appeared that access to the site had been so heavily restricted that there would be no mass movement reminiscent of the one in 1989, despite attempts by New York-based dissident blogger Wen Yunchao to have people “Return to Tiananmen.”

Wen had mounted a long-distance campaign to return the ideals of democracy and transparency for China to the nation’s public and international media. More

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