Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion
There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989.
The date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced “holidays” away from Beijing.
New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.
This is just my personal experience:
~I was talking to a few young Chinese. They were after born after the massacre happened.~
“Why are Hong Kong people are so full of themselves and rebellious? They think they are better? (Derogatory comments…”, cheating among themselves, happily.
I couldn’t help and interrupted, “Some young promising Hong Kong students were murdered, beaten and kidnapped under the mainland China. You can’t blame them for not being defensive.”
Immediately they resorted to their memorised response, “Do you have any resources to back up what you said? The official death count was zero.”
Of course there was no “official” news resources. China suppresses the news media.
"It is the same as Tiananmen massacre. You won’t find any “official resources " but everyone knows people were killed.”
Another one retorted, “The official number is zero. What official resources you have to backup your claim?”
It was useless to talk anymore at that moment. I left. My encounter probably would be on their “report.”
I find it pretty rare to meet Chinese people like that. Most of the ones I meet know that stuff happened isn’t that the government covered it up but they don’t think that the government covering things up is all that unusual or newsworthy.
Let’s not forget Faris Odeh
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faris_Odeh
A picture of Odeh standing alone in front of a tank, with a stone in his hand and arm bent back to throw it, was taken by a photojournalist from the Associated Press on 29 October 2000. Ten days later, on 8 November, Odeh was again throwing stones at Karni when he was shot in the neck by an Israeli soldier.
Why would any kid throw stones at armed soldiers? Where were his parents?
Murdered by Israelis one would assume.
And your assumption is wrong. If you read the article, you’ll see that his parents were alive and well at the time, and so were his 8 other siblings. Apparently this kid developed a habit of doing dangerous stunts like this, and father used to severely beat him many times as a way to deter him from doing more stunts in the future. Shockingly, physical abuse didn’t work, and he ended up being killed by doing another dangerous stunt in the future.
