BEIJING: Chinese police beefed up their presence on Saturday at a bridge in Beijing where a rare protest last year shocked authorities and citizens alike.
Authorities also censored online map searches for the site and even removed a nearby road sign on the eve of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Last October, days before the ruling Communist Party was set to hold its congress, a protester had draped banners with slogans criticising the party’s Covid policies on the side of the Sitong bridge in Beijing.
On Saturday, searches for “Sitong bridge” in Simplified Chinese — used in mainland China — led to a message saying “no results found” on maps on Baidu, Amap and Tencent maps.
AFP reporters saw at least four police cars parked on each corner of the bridge on Saturday, and noticed that a sign with the name of the bridge had been taken down.
The move comes a day before the anniversary of the day when tanks and heavily armed troops cleared a demonstration at Tiananmen Square by students demanding democracy and greater freedoms.
Hundreds, by some estimates more than 1,000, were killed in the crackdown on June 4, 1989.
Details of the Tiananmen protests have been wiped from history books in China, and censors routinely block websites or social media accounts ahead of the anniversary.
In Hong Kong, Tiananmen commemorations have almost disappeared after Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 to quash dissent in the city.
Police in Hong Kong on Saturday detained at least two performance artists and two others on the eve of the anniversary.
On a busy street in the commercial district of Causeway Bay, artist Sanmu Chen repeatedly chanted “Don’t forget June 4! Hong Kong people, don’t be afraid of them!”
An officer shouted at him to “stop uttering seditious words” before authorities bundled him into a police bus.
Another well-known performance artist, Chan Mei-tung, was also taken away.
Chan was wandering around the bustling area before she was stopped and searched by police, AFP reporters witnessed.
Police also detained a young couple holding white chrysanthemums — a flower typically used to signify loss and mourning.
When asked if they were being arrested, the flower-wielding man said “I have no idea” as he was taken away.
