This week marks the 25th anniversary of the death of former Communist Party official, Hu Yaobang, and the start of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement, culminating in a military crackdown in Beijing in June. To mark the occasion, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from that year.
Last week, former president Hu Jintao made a low-key visit to Hu Yaobang’s old residence. Censors deemed the visit too sensitive and reporting was restricted.
Censors also stepped in to curtail online discussion about a Uyghur high school student killed by police in Aksu, Xinjiang. Regarding the letter penned by the unregistered Protestant church, Shouwang, censors called on all websites to delete “Three Years of Outside Services: Letter to the Beijing Shouwang Church Congregation.”
A sinister-looking snake as pipe and faucet is CDT cartoonist, Badiucao’s artistic rendition of the news of contaminated tap water in Lanzhou.
Former president Hu Jintao earned the nickname Blackboard Fox during a 2010 visit to the earthquake victims of Yushu County, Qinghai. Read about it in the Name of the Week.
