Posted on 06/04/2010 6:49:29 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
21 years later, quiet day on Tiananmen Square
By DAVID WIVELL (AP) – 12 hours ago
BEIJING — Throngs of tourists and kite-flyers milled around Tiananmen Square on Friday under the watchful eye of security forces on alert for any attempt to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.
But in Hong Kong, the semiautonomous Chinese territory, the annual candlelight vigil drew thousands who took advantage of the freedom of speech in this former British colony. The crowd at Hong Kong's Victoria Park was large enough to fill six football pitches, though were no official estimates.
"The Chinese Communist Party is a thug. They will kill to protect their own interests," one participant, businessman Joe Jia, said.
China's government has never fully disclosed what happened when the military crushed the weekslong, student-led protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989, killing hundreds or possibly more people. It has long maintained that the protests were a "counterrevolutionary riot."
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