Protests crushed in China

BEIJING – China is so determined to prevent any public marking of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre Friday that police are confining dissidents to house arrest, even pummeling one who tried to leave home.

Hu Jia, a young social activist, said police beat him Monday when he came out of his home to greet visitors.

“The police refused to let them in. I was very angry about it and went out to reason with them,” Hu said. “They forced me into my room and hit me hard” on the face and body.

The rise to power of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao early last year marked a generational change in China’s leadership, and some critics hoped for a reappraisal of the student-led pro-democracy protests that took place on Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing in 1989.

But expectations have withered. The Communist Party quashes any public debate about the massacre.

As many as a million people poured into the streets of Beijing in the spring of 1989 to demand greater democracy and an end to corruption. China’s Communist leaders sent soldiers backed by tanks to crush the uprising. Troops killed somewhere between 300 and 3,000 unarmed protesters before dawn on June 4, 1989.

Protests