By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN for the Associated Press
BEIJING – China aggressively deterred dissent in the capital on Thursday's 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. But tens of thousands turned out for a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mourn the hundreds, possibly thousands, of demonstrators killed.
The central government ignored calls from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and even Taiwan's China-friendly president for Beijing to face up to the 1989 violence.
In Beijing, foreign journalists were barred from the vast square as uniformed and plainclothes police stood guard across the area, which was the epicenter of the student-led movement that was crushed by the military on the night of June 3-4, 1989.
Security officials checking passports blocked foreign TV camera operators and photographers from entering the square to cover the raising of China's national flag, which happens at dawn every day. Plainclothes officers confronted journalists on the streets surrounding the square, cursing and threatening violence against them.
Tourists were allowed in Tiananmen as usual, though security officials — paramilitary, police and plainclothes officers — appeared to outnumber the visitors.
The repression on the mainland contrasted starkly with Hong Kong, where tens of thousands of people bearing white candles chanted slogans calling for China to own up to the crackdown and release political dissidents. It was the largest commemoration on Chinese soil.
Organizers estimated the crowd at 150,000 — the largest rally since the first anniversary vigil in 1990 — while police put the number at 62,800.
"It is the dream of all Chinese people to have democracy!" the crowd gathered in Hong Kong's famous Victoria Park sang in unison.
A former British colony, the territory has retained its own legal system and open society since reverting to Chinese rule in 1997. Those killed in the violence were eulogized as heroes of the push for democracy in China, their names read aloud before the crowd observed a minute of silence in their memory.
"It's time for China to take responsibility for the killings," said Kin Cheung, a 17-year-old Hong Kong student. "They need to tell the truth."
On the mainland, government censors shut down social networking and image-sharing Web sites such as Twitter and Flickr and blacked out CNN and other foreign news channels each time they aired stories about Tiananmen.
Dissidents and families of crackdown victims were confined to their homes or forced to leave Beijing, part of sweeping efforts to prevent online debate or organized commemorations of the anniversary.
"We've been under 24-hour surveillance for a week and aren't able to leave home to mourn. It's totally inhuman," said Xu Jue, whose son was 22 when he was shot in the chest by soldiers and bled to death on June 4, 1989.
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