Police cordoned off Tiananmen Square Thursday, a holiday honoring the dead, in an apparent bid to block any attempt to mourn protesters killed in June when the military crushed the pro-democracy movement.
On the nearly deserted 100-acre square, authorized groups of flag-waving schoolchildren joined soldiers for rites marking the annual holiday, Chingming.It was the second time in a week that police kept the public off the square, the focal point of the student-led pro-democracy movement and the country's symbolic center of power. Police guards stood at 30-foot intervals around the perimeter, police vans and jeeps were parked at strategic points and dozens of police with walkie-talkies patrolled adjacent streets.
Overseas dissidents had called on Beijing students to "stroll" through the square on Chingming in a silent memorial to the hundreds of people killed when troops stormed the city June 3-4 to drive thousands of pro-democracy students from Tiananmen.
A similar appeal to walk through the square on Sunday was blocked when authorities closed it to the public, on that occasion for ceremonies to promote support for the Asian Games to be held in Beijing next fall.
Beijing schools and factories warned young people to stay away from Tiananmen and advised them against wearing black armbands or the traditional white mourning flower on Chingming.