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Thousands Mark Anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square Crackdown

   VOA News  June 04, 2011
   Demonstrators hold a candlelight vigil for protesters crushed during
   the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing at the Liberty Square of
   the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, in Taipei, Taiwan, June 4, 2011.

Photo: AP

   Demonstrators hold a candlelight vigil for protesters crushed during
   the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing at the Liberty Square of
   the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, in Taipei, Taiwan, June 4, 2011.

   The Chinese cities of Beijing and Hong Kong were the scenes Saturday of
   demonstrations to mark the 22nd anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen
   Square crackdown during which hundreds, perhaps thousands, died.
   It was on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese government sent tanks and
   soldiers into the square in central Beijing, the Chinese capital, to
   crush weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations.
   The anniversary is being marked in the midst of another Chinese
   government crackdown, this one against activists, lawyers, writers and
   bloggers.
   The U.S. State Department has been joined by the government in Taiwan
   in calling on China to release jailed dissidents and account for those
   killed, detained or missing in the Tiananmen Square crackdown. But a
   Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman insisted the matter is closed.
   The group Chinese Human Rights Defenders said Saturday that security
   officers took former government official Bao Tong to an unknown
   location this week. And the Information Center for Human Rights and
   Democracy said liberal intellectual Chen Ziming and many others have
   been placed under house arrest.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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