Date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, with government using increasingly sophisticated tools to censor its discussion

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.

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    3 days ago

    Everyday we see way worse shit happening on the streets of the US. Somehow the crackdown back then on anti-communist academics is an enshrined moment, but people on our streets getting arrested, detained, or killed is just business as usual.

    If it’s condensed down to a day then it’s easy to bleat about it since you can point to a single day “where it all happened”. If you spread out the injustice, like instituting unjust laws bill-by-bill, increasing police funding, and ramping up media rhetoric on how crime is out of control and that we need politicians who are “tough on crime” then you get something like the most imprisoned population on Earth, but there isn’t a single focal point to point at, instead multiple contributing factors, so it doesn’t stick out as much.