Tiananmen Square Anniversary Massacre: Officials Hide Truth? (VIDEO)
A quick Google search of Tiananmen Square provides the additional word "massacre" to the end of the search term and goes straight to a list of results about the horrid 1989 event. That, however, is provided that you are searching in America, and not in China.
Chinese government officials have blocked nearly every term that concerns the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of protestors. At some point consisting of nearly a half million people, the movement was made mostly of students fighting for their liberal rights. Ironically, those same rights were denied to the citizen of China on Monday, June 4, 2012- the day that marks the anniversary of the massacre.
Chinese web censors have banned any terminology that may be used by the people to make comment about the 1989 massacre. Banned words include "six four," "23," "candle" and "never forget," in addition to the candle emoticon and even the Olympic torch.
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General web searches have also been blocked and the only thing that comes up when Tiananmen Square is searched, is a brief historical summary of the location that completely leaves out any trace of the massacre.
The protests, which first began in April on 1989, ended on June 4th because of Chinese military force. The 7-week movement, triggered by the death of deposed Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, called for continued economic reform, freedom of the press, accountability from officials, and political liberalization, according to the Council on Foreign Affairs.
The massacre began when soldiers and military tanks were sent to take control of Beijing and clear Tiananmen Square. Local citizens surrounding the area began to crowd the streets and create blockades, refusing to allow the military troops to pass. As a result, the troops opened fire with live ammunition and also used tear gas.Some soldiers were also taken and beaten by protestors while military vehicles were set ablaze.
Tiananmen Square was cleared by 6 a.m. that morning, with the few hundred left in the square walking away voluntarily.
Chinese officials later claimed that only a couple hundred deaths had occurred, although initial Red Cross reports ran somewhere in the thousands. The number of deaths has been largely disputed: NATO suspected around 7,000 deaths while the New York Times suggested that 400 to 800 was a "plausible" number.
While organizers met in Hong Kong to protest the event, security measures appeared to keep Tiananmen Square free of any vigils or riots.
"The current stability-maintaining force, including the police, has effectively stopped people from doing anything on the anniversary," Ding Xueliang, a professor of social sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Bloomberg. "The cost of organizing any collective action is too large, the pressure and risks on individuals too great."
