Tiananmen Square Massacre: CCP Censors Commemoration as 35th Anniversary Marked

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Chinese students’ democratic movement and the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has censored commemorative articles and restricted the freedom of activists across the country. Meanwhile, a high-level international symposium commemorating the movement has been held in New York to discuss China’s future. April 15 marked the 35th anniversary of the death of former CCP leader Hu Yaobang, which was the trigger for the June Fourth student movement and the massacre. Hu tried to change the CCP’s one-party rule political system in China when he was the CCP leader from 1982 to 1987 and was suppressed by Deng Xiaoping, who launched the opening up of the Chinese economy but refused to reform politically and was still in control of the regime behind the curtain. College students in Beijing and other major cities started months-long mass protests in 1989 to commemorate Hu’s death and to demand democracy, until they were violently oppressed by the CCP’s military on June 4, 1989....