Three decades later, China’s ruling Communist Party remains relentless in its efforts to erase the public memory of the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests that ended in a deadly military crackdown.
The ruling Communist Party’s deadly 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests never ended for Fan Baolin, who served 17 years in prison and says he sneaked out of China last year to escape surveillance that included cameras trained on his apartment and pressure on his family to deter him from more activism.
Party leaders have imprisoned or driven activists into exile and largely succeeded in ensuring young people know little about June 4. Still, after more than three decades and three changes of leadership, they are relentless in trying to prevent any mention of the attack that killed hundreds and possibly thousands of people.
“They looked for my brother and sister,” he said. Authorities wanted “to make my family members persuade me, control me, not to participate any more in this sort of thing, not to know these people any longer.”“As they all know, my phone is monitored, so as soon as I call and as soon as they answer, they are frightened,” he said. “This is the atmosphere of fear created by the Communist Party’s domestic high-pressure policies now.
Fan’s case was disclosed to human rights groups in 2007 by a former fellow inmate, Zhao Changqing, according to the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco, which researches Chinese prisons. After that, Fan was listed as a political prisoner by Duihua and human rights groups. Fan said video cameras were installed to watch the apartment his parents bought for him before their deaths. He said that made friends skittish about visiting.
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