Anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests

The events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre are marked every year on the 4th of June in Hong Kong, Macau, European Union Countries, Canada, and the United States. 

On the night of June 3, 1989 and morning of June 4, 1989, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) violently crushed a nonviolent protest that had been taking place in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square since April of that year.   

PLA troops and tanks fired on and ran over unarmed protestors who were trying to flee the violence. While the Chinese Government claims that just over 200 people died in Tiananmen Square, most estimates outside of China are in the thousands, with some on the extreme end sitting as high as 10,000.

Today, the Chinese Government forbids discussion about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  While residents of Hong Kong have long been allowed to commemorate the events of June 4, the territory’s governmental crackdown in recent years has led to such commemorative events being banned.