It's not just World Environment Day today -- a day when those in favour of governments cracking down on people celebrate the opportunity environmentalism gives them -- it's also the nineteenth anniversary of the massacre of three thousand peaceful people in Tiananmen Square by the "People's Liberation Army" under the orders of Chinese leaders fearful of what political freedom might do to them.
On May 30, 1989, protestors in Tiananmen Square erected a papier-mâché ‘Goddess of Democracy’ which for a time faced down the iconic portrait of Chairman Mao hanging from the gates of The Forbidden City. It lasted just five days before the killing began.
There has never been any public commemoration in mainland China of the massacre, or even an acknowledgement of it.
The prolific Scott Wilson has the appropriate memorial over at SOLO: Remember Today, 1989, in Tiananmen Square!
And Human Rights in China (HRIC) has "a podcast series of interviews with participants of the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement," and the BBC have have archive reports including Kate Adie's on-the-spot reporting from the China of 1989.
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