Fondly recalling the days in which they decisively crushed the Chinese youth’s dreams of freedom by means of the Tiananmen Square massacre, leaders of China’s communist party celebrated the anniversary of that occasion by rounding up critics of their statist rule and throwing them in prison.
Photographs of the Saturday protest posted online showed demonstrators with large placards that said “remember our struggle for democracy, freedom and rights as well as those heroes who met tragedy.”
A similar protest occurred in a park in southeast China’s Guiyang city last week, with police subsequently taking into custody at least four of the organisers of the event, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group said on its website.
The US State Department on Sunday called on Beijing to release those still serving sentences for their participation in the 1989 demonstrations and do more to protect the human rights of its citizens.
But foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin hit back a day later, saying Beijing expressed “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to what he said were “groundless accusations”.
In Beijing, veteran dissident Hu Jia said on his microblog that, as in previous years on the Tiananmen anniversary, police had stepped up security around the homes of numerous political activists and social critics.
Rights activists and lawyers said police had also contacted them and warned against participating in activities marking the crackdown.
Another rights defender, Yu Xiaomei from eastern Jiangsu province, told AFP by telephone she had been followed by three men when she left her home on Monday.
“I recognized one of them. He had beaten me and detained me two years ago. I ran away, I don’t dare go out onto the street today,” she said.
Long live the people’s revolution.
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