This last Sunday, Chinese users defied strict governmental regulations and posted anniversary photos in remembrance of the Tiananmen protests some 28 years ago in 1989. These photos come from a photographer–David Chen, who was actually at the protests at the time.
The Tiananmen protests were student-led demonstrations in response to rapid economic development reigned over by the economic elite. Protests grew so large that Martial law was declared which ended up killing hundreds and possibly thousands of Chinese civilians. This event set a terrible precedent for freedom of expression in China that continues on today, and it remains one of the most sensitive and most censored politic topics in China.
Images leaking out on Twitter and Wechat messaging show tanks appearing in Chang’an Avenue which is north of Tiananmen Square. Other similar images are leaking as well that have managed to get through the strict Chinese firewall.
David Chen, the one who managed to take photos at the protests (it was a luxury to own a camera at the time) only just recently migrated to the United States in 2012. Now, he says that “twenty-eight years have passed, the world should know what happened.”
TorGuard has covered numerous censorship stores in the past, with many instances on Facebook censorship, or Twitter censorship, and even VPN censorship. This instance however, is very powerful because it demonstrates the purpose of Chinese internet censorship. It’s not designed to protect citizens from terrorism or threats outside of the country, but to hide its corrupted governmental past and foundations.
The Tiananmen protests were horrific and bloody, but powerfully censored, and now in the modern day–to enact a country-wide firewall that only limits freedom of expression more and limits the spread of information within the country, just shows that the Chinese government hasn’t changed one bit from what it was in the past.