Tiananmen Square – Nothing Happened Here

Much has already been said in the 20 years since the Chinese government’s heavy crackdown on a series of student-led demonstrations in and around the area of the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. June 4, 1989 was the day when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square crushing bodies underneath them, and the military fired at the protesters made up mostly of unarmed students and workers. Until now, 20 years after, the death toll remains a mystery. The Chinese Red Cross initially reported that 2,600 died, but retracted allegedly under pressure from the government. Some journalists estimated that the number could be as high as 7,000. The official tally, however, concluded that less than 300 died and 7,000 were injured.

Dozens of protesters are still languishing in Chinese prisons after unfair trials and many more activists have since been arrested for questioning the government's actions in 1989.



Amnesty International has called for the Chinese authorities to:

• Grant an amnesty to those imprisoned in connection with the 1989 protests;
• Allow the Tiananmen Mothers to mourn their children publicly without harassing them;
• Respect the right to peaceful protest - whether it is in Tibet or mainland China;
• Allow an independent investigation into what happened at Tiananmen Square in1989;
• Honour the promises made when bidding for the Olympic Games to improve human rights.

China has relied on the complicity of the World to look the other way whilst it desecrates the memory of the brave students who opposed dictatorship and protested for democracy. Like most dictatorships the self appointed Communist Party tried to control Freedom of Speech and information flows to its people by raising The Great Firewall of China. Here are the views of two Chinese Bloggers;

TECHCRUNCH

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/china-shuts-down-twitter-and-bing-in-lead-up-to-tiananmen-anniversary/

“It’s widely known that China runs a pretty tight ship - to put it mildly - on what its citizens get to see online, especially that content which exists outside of China. YouTube has been blocked for some time and although Wikipedia was blocked for a while, it’s gradually become more available. However today Chinese authorities have come down like a tonne of bricks on a number of services including Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live.com, Hotmail.com, Blogger and a number of other sites. And that’s no joke, given that we’re talking about the Great Wall of China here.”



MissXu

"Since many of the sites don’t actually have Chinese versions, it’s hard to know how many people will be affected by this, but for those brave and resourceful business people, entrepreneurs and social commentators with strong links to the world outside China, it’s a crushing blow.

Having travelled to China last year I have a number of contacts there now who have all now confirmed the shutdown (all agreed to be named in this post). The shut-down is almost certainly related to the date. The Tiananmen Square Massacre happened in June 4, and the lead-up to any date like this is usually a time when the Firewall is tightened. The API to Twitter, used by clients like TweetDeck, Twhirl and Seesmic Desktop, has also been affected. [Update: News is coming in that the Twitter API has not been affected as badly as the Web site, making API based Twitter applications better placed in China].

Kaiser Kuo, a Chinese-American writer and consultant in Beijing working with Youku told me via direct message after the system shut down completely using a VPN (which, like proxies, are commonplace in China) that “My only surprise in this matter is that it took ‘em so long.”

Ryan McLaughlin, an ex-pat American writer and web designer/developer based outside Beijing, said [updated:] that VPNs, which many Chinese use to get around the Great Firewall, are not being affected by the shutdown. He also blogs “Undoubtedly the blocks are in an effort to curb online commentary and the dissemination of information about the massacre, which on celebrates its 20th anniversary.”

Mimi Xu, a China/San Francisco based product dev and entrepreneur who Tweets as MissXu, summed it up: “The 3 web services I can’t live without - Twitter, Flickr, YouTube - are all blocked in China. Cheers, motherf#@#s!”