Police flood Tiananmen Square ahead of anniversary

[ag337]

Police flood Tiananmen Square ahead of anniversary
By Peter Foster in Beijing and Malcolm Moore in Hong Kong

Several hundred police, paramilitaries and other security forces fanned out across the vast square, the symbolic centre of pro-democracy protests in 1989.

Visitors were carefully vetted at checkpoints at entrances to the square, and foreign journalists were barred from entering. Inside the square, plain-clothes and uniformed officers vastly outnumbered a smattering of tourists around the huge portrait of Chairman Mao.

Chinese authorities also made sure there were no embarrassing signs of protest or commemoration elsewhere in Beijing. Television shows featuring foreign panelists have been rescheduled and websites, including Hotmail and Twitter, have been blocked.

Popular Chinese internet sites, such as Fanfou, a clone of Twitter, and VeryCD, a music and film download site, have put up notices saying they are down for "maintenance". Chinese web surfers have jokingly started referring to the anniversary as "Chinese Internet Maintenance Day".

Ding Zilin, 72, whose 17-year-old son was shot dead during the bloodshed said her plan to lay a wreath where he fell has been thwarted by the authorities. "They are not letting me out [of my home]," she said.

Qi Zhiyong, a 53-year-old dissident who lost his leg in 1989, was forcefully removed from the capital on Wednesday. "Every day I have to take my daughter to school in a police car. Today, after I saw her off, the police refused to let me get out of the car. Two more policemen got in and forced me to sit in the middle. They are now taking me out of Beijing," he said.

In Hong Kong, which remains the only part of China where free speech exists, a second dissident was denied an entry visa. Xiang Xiaoji was turned around at Hong Kong airport and sent back to New York after arriving to take part in a candlelit vigil planned for Thursday. The US said his deportation was "particularly regrettable".

Another dissident, Yang Jianli, was turned away at the airport several weeks ago, as was a Danish artist, Jens Galschiot, responsible for a memorial sculpture for the massacre. However, other participants in the Tiananmen Square protests have been allowed in.

A Danish artist who created a sculpture depicting its victims was also denied entry to the territory on Saturday. Jens Galschiot said immigration officials did not explain why he was deported. The Hong Kong government said it acted legally but did not give details.

In Times Square, a glitzy shopping district in the centre of Hong Kong, eleven students had yesterday completed more than 48 hours of a hunger strike in memory of the victims. "We will continue until tomorrow morning," said Kwok Wing Kin, 23.

As he spoke, a queue of bystanders voiced their support and laid flowers at the foot of a six-foot replica of the Goddess of Liberty statue that was first erected in Tiananmen Square. "We have had some support from mainland visitors too," he said. "Part of the reason we are doing this is to show people from the mainland what is possible".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rsary.html