China dismissed a US call for it to free dissidents and fully account for the victims of the bloody Tiananmen crackdown, on the anniversary of the crushing of the pro-democracy uprising 22 years ago. The date on which troops shot their way into central Beijing in 1989, killing hundreds, was not publicly marked in mainland China.
The democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere remain taboo for the ruling Communist Party, especially this year after calls for an Arab-style "jasmine revolution". In Hong Kong, tens of thousands lit candles, held jasmine flowers and chanted for a fully democratic China in a night vigil to mark the anniversary and condemn Beijing's human rights abuses and curbs on freedoms. The US State Department said China must release all those still jailed for their participation in the 1989 protests. "We ask the Chinese government to provide the fullest possible public accounting of those killed, detained or missing," deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
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