![]() In early July, I heard from Public Security sources that they had all been executed on 9 June in a rural district near Beijing. I thought there were around 200 young people. 'There were also people surrounded by soldiers, being kicked by them. As we went down the side of the Square, we saw soldiers with large plastic bags. 'We took the wounded on stretchers and went down Square. No one knows the death toll from Tiananmen that night. Others were crushed to death by military vehicles. Another followed - a youth with a bloody mess around his chest.'Īs the troops kept firing into the crowds, some of those running away were shot in the back. ![]() 'The first casualty in the square was rushed away - a girl with her face smashed and bloody, carried spread-eagled towards the trees. They gave no warning before they started shooting. The government wanted to 'restore order' in the capital.Īs they approached the demonstrations, troops opened fire on crowds of protesters and onlookers. Overnight on 3 to 4 June, the government sent tens of thousands of armed troops and hundreds of armoured military vehicles into the city centre to enforce martial law and forcibly clear the streets of demonstrators. Under no circumstances will harm innocent people, let alone young students.' 'The troops are by no means targeted at the students. In the weeks that followed the declaration of martial law, hundreds of thousands of people once again protested on the streets of Beijing, with similar demonstrations taking place in cities across China. However, the next day martial law was declared in Beijing to ‘firmly stop the unrest’. The protesters ended their hunger strike that evening. Party leaders visited the student protests on 19 May. What was the government's response? Martial Law It is estimated that one million people joined the protests in Beijing to express their support for the students on hunger strike and to demand reform. On 13 May, hundreds of student protesters in Tiananmen Square went on hunger strike in order to push for talks with Communist Party leaders. How many people demonstrated? A million on the streets The gathering turned into peaceful protests which spread across the provinces of China as demonstrators, mainly students, began to call for an end to official corruption and for political and economic reform. In the short film below he talks about how he came to capture what would become one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century.Įvents leading up to the Tiananmen Square crackdownįrom April 1989 people from across China gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of the liberal Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang and share their frustrations about the slow pace of promised reform. Stuart Franklin took the Tank Man photograph. 'It demonstrates one man's extraordinary courage, standing up in front of a row of tanks, being prepared to sacrifice his own life for the sake of social justice' But the image of unarmed man versus tank quickly came to symbolise the struggle of the Tiananmen protesters - peaceful protest met with military might. Eventually, he was pulled out of the way of danger by onlookers. Tank Man would not let the military vehicles pass. The man is known simply as Tank Man: his identity has never been confirmed. The Tiananmen protests were immortalised in Western media on 5 June 1989 through the image of a lone man in a white shirt carrying shopping bags, facing an imposing column of military tanks sent by the government to disperse protesters. The most famous photo of Tiananmen Square is known as "Tank Man". In 2021, after she posted on social media to encourage people to light candles at home, Chow Hang-tung was unjustly imprisoned in Hong Kong. Many refuse to forget Tiananmen Square. Human rights lawyer and activist Chow Hang-tung, who is wrongly imprisoned in Hong Kong, is one of them.įor many years, the human rights lawyer and activist Chow Hang-tung has helped to organise a peaceful annual remembrance of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The Chinese authorities want everyone to forget that they killed hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. ![]() ![]() It remains a contentious topic in China, with authorities banning all mention of the protest even today. The Chinese government has never acknowledged the true events surrounding the Tiananmen massacre. A post shared by Amnesty International UK units were brought in and unarmed protesters and onlookers were killed en masse. ![]()
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