China tightens security for Tiananmen anniversary

BEIJING (AFP) – China on Wednesday kept a tight lid on content related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, blacking out foreign TV reports about the 20th anniversary of the incident and expanding curbs on websites.

News reports about the bloody June 3-4 crackdown that ended seven weeks of pro-democracy protests at the square were abruptly cut off with screens periodically going black on the BBC and CNN in China, as they have all week.

China's censors also appeared to be blocking sites such as Microsoft's new search engine Bing, social networking service Twitter, photo-hosting website Flickr and others.

Attempts by AFP to access those sites resulted in an error page saying the site could not be displayed.

The sites join those regularly blocked by China at sensitive times, including YouTube, the BBC's Chinese-language service and press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The blockages prompted a flurry of speculation on by users careful to avoid mentioning the Tiananmen events, which are still taboo here.

"It is not because of a software glitch. It is because of ... tomorrow," one user wrote on the donews.com website about the Bing.com blockage.

RSF issued a statement condemning the moves.

"Twenty years later, it is still impossible for the Chinese media to refer freely to the ruthless suppression of China's pro-democracy movement in June 1989," the Paris-based media watchdog said.

"The information blackout has been enforced so effectively for 20 years that most young Chinese are completely unaware of this major event."

The Chinese army forcibly cleared the square and surrounding areas on the night of . Hundreds, and possibly thousands, were killed in the crackdown.

China has visibly beefed up security at the square, the political heart of the nation, in a bid to prevent or other attempts to mark the anniversary, and tightened restrictions on dissidents.

China also has recently blocked a number of Chinese blogs, such as that of prominent artist and gadfly Ai Weiwei, who is frequently critical of the government.

But some Chinese web users have found ways around the blocks, referring for instance to June 4 as 'May 35th," a non-existent date that is doing the rounds online.

"When I heard the news (blocking of Twitter), it shocked me. As May 35th approaches, it's time for drastic measures," said a blogger called Xiaoxiao Shuiyun.

However, many major websites with links to Tiananmen-related information were freely available, including some featuring the famous photo of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks -- an image banned in China.

Sites such as CNN.com, which has been blocked in the past during politically sensitive periods, also were accessible.

A Microsoft official said Tuesday its Bing.com, Live.com and Hotmail.com sites were among several to have been blocked for customers in China.

Hotmail.com accounts were intermittently accessible by AFP on Wednesday.

Some newspaper readers also have reported pages missing in international newspapers distributed in China.

China's foreign correspondents' association issued a statement Tuesday saying it had received reports of authorities blocking reporting at Tiananmen Square and intimidating journalists or their sources.

"The Foreign Correspondents? Club of China deplores the restrictions on journalists attempting to cover the 20th anniversary of the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989," the statement said.