World Watches as 20th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Approaches

04.14.09 | FL News Team

The government of China calls it the "June 4th incident" while the rest of the world calls it the "Tiananmen Square Massacre." June 4th of this year will be the 20th since the student pro-democracy uprising in China.

Today a Hong Kong student union is hosting a vote asking whether China should apologize for Tiananmen Square. Ballots will be cast over the next three days. The question asked by the Hong Kong University Student Union is whether China should "rectify" its verdict that the protests were counter-revolutionary and that killings by the government were justified.

While the world watched two decades ago, hundreds of demonstrators were killed in the square and streets around Tiananmen Square. An unknown number of people were imprisoned. Viewers cheered the iconic moment of the protest as one man flaunted authority, standing in front of a military tank, daring it to run him over.

An organizer of this week's balloting says, "Hong Kong is a place in China where people can still openly remember June 4th." Remembrances and protests of the event are not tolerated in any other Chinese cities.