latimes.com — Beijing blocks Internet social networking sites and rips pages out of foreign newspapers before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that culminated into the "June 4th incident".
Jun 3, 2009 View in Crawl 4
dodonoghueJun 4, 2009
Yet if Im in china and I google this, its like it never happened
jytsaiJun 4, 2009
We're not digging you down because we disagree with you; we're digging you down because of the inaccuracies in your account. The majority of casualties were sustained by frantic citizens the later in the day, when Tianamen square had already been cleared. Why were these individuals frantic? Because they had heard about the deaths in the square earlier that morning, and they had family members in attendance who were now missing. (This was before cell phones, so communication was nonexistent.) If you had family members who might be dead or dying within the now sealed off square, would you care about official orders to stay off the street?Parents trying to locate their children. Wives trying to find their husbands. Hardly dangerous hard line radicals.Go watch some documentaries. You'll see that this scene occurred repeatedly:Groups of people approach the troops, demanding passage. The commander of the troops says something along the line of "we won't be responsible for what happens if you don't leave." The crowd refuses to leave. The commander threatens to open fire. The people start running. And finally the troops open fire - while the crowd is fleeing, shooting unarmed citizens in the back.Then the next group of scared, confused family members shows up, to be gunned down in turn.I'm sure some soldiers were injured and killed, but that doesn't discount the fact that thousands of unarmed citizens were killed, and tens of thousands were injured. Not only does historical evidence disagree with your account, logic disagrees with you as well; you can't convince me that more than a handful of soldiers were so peaceful that they refused to use their weapons on the citizens when their life was in imminent danger. What's more likely, more armed soldiers died? Or more unarmed citizens died?
bminton3Jun 4, 2009
It's my birthday! :D
qijiguangJun 4, 2009
Yeah, whatever.Just because you are a cowardly person and would gladly surrender all of your rights doesn't mean the rest of the population is the same way.
Closed AccountJun 5, 2009
My sister just got back from China, she said a lot of the sites were banned.
gramathyJun 5, 2009
404 freedom not found
pandabearshenyuJun 6, 2009
they don't censor it, they just avoid ever talking about. Like I said, no one was perfectly innocent, and it's a tragedy whenever civilians die no matter the circumstances and people want to forget it and move on.Also, you speak of democracy as if it's some kind of holy grail that all countries should strive for. I've got news for you friend, China's been a "dictatorship" for over 5000 years, name one democracy that's come even close. Democratic countries have a history of violence in the name of spreading "freedom", it might work for you, you might like it, but don't try to impose this system on someone else. Learn the history of China before the downfall 200 years ago, you'll see that is has been the dominant world power for the better part of human history.
a30nJun 8, 2009
curiosity
yaehoonJan 28, 2010
It's chilling but I think what we should take from this image isn't the cruelty of a regime that suppresses it's people.Instead we should be inspired by a people who stood up against guns and tanks in the name of not even freedom, but simple human rights. A people who stood up against a government far enough the push them into a corner, forcing them to use whatever means to resolve the problem.What I, personally, took away from this event is that these people are more free than us here in the west in alot of ways.These people gave up everything for what they believed in, for their future, for their children.While we are too shackled by the invisible chains of jobs, security, cars, wives, money and status to do anything about the things that just aren't right. We boast and claim to be the most free nations (canada, u.s) in the world; I simply don't agree.