Thousands defied a police ban to gather with candles in Hong Kong to mark China’s bloody Tiananmen Square democracy crackdown in 1989 and accuse China of stifling freedoms too on their semi-autonomous territory.
About:
The Tiananmen Square protests were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing during 1989 calling for democracy, free speech and a free press in China.
Background to protests:
The protests were set off by the death of pro-reform Communist general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social changes in post-Mao China.
Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation.
Tiananmen Square Massacre:
The protests started on April 15 and were forcibly suppressed in a bloody crackdown, known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, by the Chinese government on June 4 and 5, 1989.
On June 4, the government declared martial law and sent the military to occupy central parts of Beijing. Troops with assault rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators.
Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.
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