As Beijing seeks to quell discussion of 1989, three protesters and an expert on Chinese politics discuss how the massacre has shaped today's China, the alternative courses that the country might have taken and the prospects for political reform
Soldiers face to face with student demonstrators during 1989's Tiananmen Square protests. Photograph: Peter Turnley/CORBIS
Tania Branigan
Tuesday 3 June 2014
The anniversary has been preceded by scores of detentions, with others placed under house arrest. Some detainees have been charged with offences carrying prison terms of several years for holding a private memorial gathering. Google services have been disrupted and police have warned some foreign journalists they face unspecified consequences for covering sensitive issues.Twenty-five years after the bloody military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, China is seeking to quell all discussion of the massacre by locking up, charging or harassing artists, scholars, lawyers, bloggers and relatives of victims.
