[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/645408] Police pounce on 20th Tiananmen anniversary[/url]:
BEIJING - At the south end of Tiananmen Square shortly after noon today, uniformed policemen grabbed a man brusquely by the arms and started dragging him off to a police cruiser.
"There must be some misunderstanding!" the man was yelling in Mandarin. "There's no misunderstanding," a policeman shouted back. "Get in the car!"
Suddenly about 20 men, who moments before had seemed like tourists, began converging on the scene. They were all packing walkie talkies: undercover policemen.
"But it's a misunderstanding," the man pleaded as more and more police closed in. "Can't we just talk here?"
"We're not talking about this in public," the uniformed cop shouted. "Get in the car!"
And with that the man was pushed into the backseat and the doors were slammed shut.
I looked at my watch: it was 10 minutes past noon.
With the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre today, Chinese authorities weren't taking any chances.
Uniformed and plain clothes police outnumbered tourists in Beijing's main square.
Twenty years ago on June 4, 1989, between 800 and 1,000 people died here, when the government ordered soldiers to turn their tanks and guns on their own people to put down a democracy protest by students and workers.
In the two decades that have passed, the event haunts the ruling Communist Party still. But there was no mention of it in any of China's official media today.
Checkpoints and x-ray machines were set up at all of the square's main entrances and police were instructed to turn away foreign journalists.
The Associated Press reported plain clothes police confronting foreign journalists on the streets surrounding the square and threatening violence against them.