Sixteen years ago, on the night of June 4 1989, tanks moved into Tiananmen Square in Beijing and began the violent dispersal of the longest-running student demonstration the People’s Republic of China had seen…
In the weeks after the violence, untold numbers fled abroad. To this day, others remain in prison. In the party itself, thousands were purged for their sympathy with the demonstrators. Today, relatives of the victims continue to ask for justice and – perhaps more importantly for the long-term health of the People’s Republic of China – for a truthful account of the events of that night and the bloody days that followed.
But the Chinese government continues to repress the truth and those who ask for it.