Police warn families of Tiananmen crackdown dead not to visit graves on 37th anniversary
Source: AP
By KEN MORITSUGU and KANIS LEUNG
Updated 9:25 AM CDT, June 4, 2026
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BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago Thursday, in a further tightening in a yearslong campaign to erase what happened from public memory.
Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Relatives from a group called Tiananmen Mothers visited the graves for more than 30 years, reading memorial statements while police kept watch, Amnesty International said.
Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed in 1989 as troops advanced through crowds that were trying to stop the military from reaching the protesters on Tiananmen Square, a vast plaza in the center of the Chinese capital. The decision by the Communist Party leadership to send in the military was a pivotal moment in China’s modern history, determining that the market reform that transformed the country into the world’s second largest economy would not be coupled with political liberalization.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/china-tiananmen-anniversary-june-4-crackdown-169cc977ecd28916ee7fb06d7489f86b