p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- It’s June 5, today.

On the same date 10 years ago, a lone Chinese man — the Unknown Rebel –  stood alone, barring the advance of tanks as they paraded in Tiananmen Square.

The Tiananmen Square protests, as they came to be known, also meant the deaths of, at the very least, 300 people.

The tanks rolled in on June 4, 1989, “to crush pro-democracy protesters,” says Reuters.

But the Chinese Communist Party has never released a death toll, which may have been in the thousands, instead of hundreds.

“A vigil marking 20 years since the Tiananmen massacre has been held in Hong Kong, the only part of China to commemorate the event,” says the BBC, going on, “An estimated 150,000 people gathered in Victoria Park for the annual event, which was addressed by one of the 1989 student leaders, Xiong Yan.

“Other Tiananmen veterans were banned from entering the territory.”

Open debate about the events, “is forbidden in mainland China, and the government has never held an official inquiry,” says the story, continuing »»»

Thursday’s gathering saw the biggest turnout for a Tiananmen anniversary ever recorded in Hong Kong, the BBC’s John Simpson reports.

If the Beijing government hoped that by clamping down on all commemoration in mainland China, they could make people forget what happened, they were very wrong, our correspondent says.

On the contrary, it has underlined the lack of political freedom that there still is in China.

The Hong Kong authorities, like the Chinese government itself, knew it would have been absolutely unthinkable had they banned this commemoration.

But to please Beijing, the Hong Kong authorities did stop some of the Tiananmen exiles coming into the former colony, our correspondent says.

Thursday’s star attraction was Xiong Yan, now an exile based in the US.

“Our hearts are hurting but we have a dream that in the not too distant future China’s one party, authoritarian leadership will leave the stage,” he told the rally.

Our correspondent says the scene in Hong Kong seems very reminiscent of Tiananmen Square itself 20 years ago, with the same sort of idealism, the same sort of youthful feeling.

“The success of the Hong Kong rally means that China’s hopes of sweeping the memory of the Tiananmen massacre under the carpet have come to nothing,” the BBC correspondent adds.

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Reuters – Canada joins U.S. call for Tiananmen accounting, June 4, 2009
BBC – Hong Kong holds Tiananmen vigil, June 4, 2009