BEIJING – Chinese authorities shut down blogs, Internet forums, and social media sites such as Twitter in an apparent attempt to stem online political discussion ahead of Thursday's 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on 1989's Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.
As in past years, dissidents were rounded up and shipped out of Beijing and foreign media reports on the protests and continuing calls for an independent investigation into the events of June 3-4, 1989, have been blocked.
However, the cut-off of Internet sites marks a new chapter in the authorities' attempts to muzzle dissent, one that testifies to the burgeoning influence of such technology among young Chinese in an authoritarian society where information is tightly controlled.
"There has been a really intensified clampdown on quasi-public discussion of awareness of this event," said Xiao Qiang, adjunct professor of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley, and director of The Berkeley China Internet Project.
"It's a discussion about where China is now and where China can go from here. So the authorities are making a major crackdown to block user-generated sites such as Twitter and show there is no right to public discussion," he said.
China has the world's largest online population, and Internet communities have proven increasingly influential in spreading word of events to everything from student protests to group shopping excursions.
People are going outside the normal, controlled channels to set up communities online, spreading information about campus unrest and other activities that the government considers to be potentially subversive.
Government Internet monitors have shuttered message boards on more than 6,000 Web sites affiliated with colleges and universities, apparently to head off any talk about the 1989 events, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Numerous blogs maintained by edgy government critics such as avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei have been blocked and the text-messaging service Twitter and pictures on photo sharing site Flikr could not be accessed within China on Wednesday. Video sharing site YouTube has been blocked within China since March.
"We understand the Chinese government is blocking access to Flickr and other international sites, though the government has not issued any explanation," Jason Khoury, spokesman for Yahoo, which owns Flickr. "We believe a broad restriction without a legal basis is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression."
Officials from Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
Authorities have been steadily tightening surveillance over China's dissident community ahead of this year's anniversary, with some leading writers already under house arrest for months.
Government critics, including activist Ding Zilin and former top government adviser Bao Tong, could not be reached amid reports they were ordered to leave the capital prior to the anniversary of the crackdown.
Bao, the 76-year-old former secretary to Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader deposed for sympathizing with the 1989 pro-democracy protesters, accepted an offer from the Public Security Ministry to visit southeastern China over the anniversary, his son, Bao Pu, said from his home in Hong Kong.
Ding, a retired professor and advocate for Tiananmen victims whose teenage son was killed in the crackdown, said earlier security agents "strongly suggested" she and her husband leave the capital during the anniversary. Repeated calls to her Beijing home met with busy signals.
Elsewhere, in the Zhejiang province city of Taizhou, former educator Wu Gaoxing — jailed for two years after the crackdown — was taken from his home by agents Saturday, shortly after the publication of a letter he co-signed complaining about economic discrimination against dissidents, according to another of the letter's signatories, Mao Guoliang.
China has never allowed an independent investigation into the military's crushing of the 1989 protests, in which possibly thousands of students, activists and ordinary citizens were killed. The subject remains taboo on the mainland, with officials routinely countering questions about Tiananmen with remarks on how much China has developed and prospered in the years since.
Despite the official silence, the crackdown remains a major topic for human rights groups and pro-democracy supporters in the Chinese-ruled Hong Kong autonomous region, where this year's June 4 vigil is expected to draw tens of thousands.
Overseas monitoring groups estimate 30 men remain imprisoned on charges relating to the protest, and Amnesty International issued an open letter this week to China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, calling for their release.
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