Tiananmen Square: China steps up curbs on activists for 30th anniversary
Every year in late May, Hu Jia is taken on a mandatory holiday to Qinhuangdao, a port city almost 200 miles from his home in Beijing. He is accompanied by police on walks in the park or by the sea and is always in view of a minder. Hu returns to the capital only after 4 June, the anniversary of the Chinese government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Hu, one of China’s most prominent political activists, has been under house arrest for years in part for attempting to commemorate the anniversary of the crackdown, one of the most notorious incidents of state violence against activists in living memory. He still maintains hope that democracy will come to China in his lifetime.
