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China clamps down ahead of Tiananmen anniversary
AFP - Thursday, June 4
BEIJING (AFP) - - China threw a massive security cordon around Tiananmen Square Wednesday on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy protests, as dissidents said they faced even tighter curbs.
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Several hundred police, paramilitaries and other security personnel swarmed over the square in the heart of Beijing, where the army crushed weeks of protests the night of June 3-4 1989 .
Police examined visitors at checkpoints dotted around the square, scrutinised bus passengers disembarking in nearby streets and checked the bags and papers of people approaching from surrounding neighbourhoods.
The anniversary of the army's Tiananmen crackdown -- in which hundreds, possibly thousands of people were killed -- is sensitive for the central government, which has made any discussion of the events of June 1989 taboo.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Beijing to publish the names of those killed or missing in the Tiananmen Square protests on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the crackdown.
"A China that has made enormous progress economically and is emerging to take its rightful place in global leadership should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal," Clinton said in a statement.
She also called on China to release prisoners still detained for taking part in the peaceful pro-democracy protests and end harassment of the Tiananmen Mothers, which is pressing to know more about missing loved ones.
"China can honor the memory of that day by moving to give the rule of law, protection of internationally recognized human rights and democratic development the same priority as it has given to economic reform," she said.
Several of China's leading dissidents here have told AFP they have faced even tighter restrictions on their movements in the run-up to Thursday's anniversary.
Qi Zhiyong, who lost his left leg in 1989 and is under nearly permanent police surveillance, was taken out of Beijing by force early Wednesday after previously refusing police requests to leave the capital, he told AFP.
"Every day I must send my daughter to school in a police car. Today after seeing off my child, the police refused to allow me to get out of the car," Qi, 53, said in a text message.
"Instead two additional police got in the car, forced me to sit in the middle, and they are now taking me out of Beijing. They are going to take my phone away."
Subsequent calls to Qi went unanswered.
Ding Zilin, whose son was shot dead in the crackdown, said she had been asked to leave Beijing ahead of the anniversary, but refused.
"Now they are not letting me out," 72-year-old Ding -- who now leads an activist group called the Tiananmen Mothers -- told AFP by phone from her apartment.
Writer and social critic Jiang Qisheng, jailed for subversion in 1999 after he tried to organise commemorations on the 10th anniversary of the crackdown, told AFP that police prevented him taking his wife to the doctor.
"This year we are seeing police taking more radical measures," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.
"This tells us that all the legal protections that are quoted by the state vanish when the Communist Party feels threatened."
On Saturday, officials took away Wu Gaoxing, who was jailed for two years after he protested in 1989 in the eastern province of Zhejiang, fellow activist Chen Longde told AFP.
Wu had just written an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao seeking economic redress for those jailed after the crackdown.
In Hong Kong, former 1989 student leader Xiang Xiaoji was barred from the city after flying in with a US passport to attend a commemorative vigil on June 4. He was sent back to New York.
Meanwhile, Tiananmen Square, which was closed for the visit of the Malaysian prime minister at 4pm (0800 GMT), failed to re-open despite police assurances it would, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
A policeman said the square would only re-open again on June 4.
And there was a strong police presence Wednesday night in Muxidi west of the square, where many people were killed 20 years ago.
The latest clampdown on dissidents came after Bao Tong -- a former aide to late Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, who was purged for sympathising with pro-democracy protesters -- was taken out of Beijing last week.
Amnesty International said leading AIDS activist Wan Yanhai was forced by police to leave Beijing and spend the anniversary in northeast China.
The wife of veteran dissident Hu Jia, who was jailed for subversion before the Beijing 2008 Olympics, was also blocked by police from leaving her home Wednesday, the rights group said.
"The quest for truth will only be fuelled by this excessive harassment," Amnesty's deputy director Roseann Rife said in a statement.
Meanwhile, rights lawyers Lan Zhixue and Tang Jitian were taken in for questioning a day after holding a meeting at a non-government research centre that focuses on democracy, according to colleague Liu Wei.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Beijing Wednesday to publish the names of those killed or missing in the protests, release prisoners still detained for taking part and end harassment of the Tiananmen Mothers.
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