BEIJING: Chinese authorities have rounded up hundreds of activists in the capital Beijing, rights campaigners and petitioners said yesterday, as they marked the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The detentions came as Washington angered Beijing by calling for all those still jailed over the demonstrations on June 4, 1989 — when hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters were shot and killed by soldiers — to be freed.
The anniversary of the brutal army action in the heart of Beijing is always hugely sensitive, but particularly so this year ahead of a once-a-decade handover of power marred by fierce in-fighting in the ruling Communist Party.
“They brought in a lot of buses and were rounding up petitioners at the Beijing South rail station on Saturday night,” Zhou Jinxia, a petitioner from northeast China’s Liaoning province, told AFP.
“There were between 600 to 1,000 petitioners from all over China. We were processed, we had to register and then they started sending people back to their home towns.” Police made it clear that the round up of petitioners — people who gather at central government offices in Beijing to seek redress for rights violations in their localities — was to prevent them from protesting on June 4, she said.
On Monday, police maintained a watchful eye over places where petitioners gather in Beijing as well as public places in the capital.
China still considers the June 4 demonstrations a “counter-revolutionary rebellion” and has refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing or consider compensation for those killed, more than two decades later.
The government attempts to block any public discussion or remembrance of the events by hiding away key dissidents in the run-up to June 4 each year, taking them into custody or placing them under house arrest.
Any mention of the 1989 protests is banned in state media, and the subject is largely taboo in China. Searches on China’s popular social media sites for June 4, the number 23 and the word “candle” were blocked on Monday.
Despite the heightened security, numerous public events have been held around the nation to commemorate the “Tiananmen massacre” and demand democratic reforms.
More than 80 rights campaigners met in a Beijing square on Saturday, carrying banners and shouting slogans calling for a reassessment of the 1989 protests.
“We shouted ‘down with corruption’, and ‘protect our rights’,” Wang Yongfeng, a Shanghai activist, who attended the protest, said.
“So many people were killed on June 4, we think the government should fully account for what happened.” Photographs of the Saturday protest posted online showed demonstrators with large placards that said “remember our struggle for democracy, freedom and rights as well as those heroes who met tragedy.” A similar protest occurred in a park in southeast China’s Guiyang city last week, with police subsequently taking into custody at least four of the organizers of the event, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group said on its website.
The US State Department on Sunday called on Beijing to release those still serving sentences for their participation in the 1989 demonstrations and do more to protect the human rights of its citizens.
 FROM: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
But foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin hit back a day later, saying Beijing expressed “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to what he said were “groundless accusations.”
In Beijing, veteran dissident Hu Jia said authorities had stepped up security around him and numerous other political activists and social critics, as in previous years on the Tiananmen anniversary.
Rights activists and lawyers said police had also contacted them and warned against participating in activities marking the crackdown.
The only open commemoration of the crackdown allowed on Chinese soil is taking place in Hong Kong, a Chinese territory that enjoys freedoms not allowed in the mainland.
Organizers say they expect more than 150,000 people to join an evening candlelight vigil to mark the anniversary.
China’s microblogs buzzed with conspiracy theories after the key mainland stock index fell 64.89 points — the numerals in June 4, 1989 — on the anniversary.
“Is this a coincidence? Or is it a kind of silent protest? We investors collectively got shot,” said the website Gushequ, which produces stock analysis for individual investors.
 FROM: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
China rounds up activists on Tiananmen anniversary
China rounds up activists on Tiananmen anniversary
Trump says Australia will grant asylum to Iran women footballers
- Presenter on Iranian state TV had branded the players “wartime traitors” after they stood motionless during the anthem
MIAMI: US President Donald Trump said Monday that Australia had agreed to grant asylum to some of Iran’s visiting women’s football team, amid fears they could face retaliation back home for not singing the national anthem before a match.
The gesture ahead of the team’s Asian Cup match against South Korea last week was seen by many as an act of defiance against the Islamic republic just two days after the United States and Israel attacked it.
“I just spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, of Australia, concerning the Iranian National Women’s Soccer Team. He’s on it! Five have already been taken care of,” Trump said Monday on his Truth Social network, less than two hours after an initial post urging Australia to take them in.
Trump added that “some, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don’t return.”
There was no immediate comment from the Australian government, which has so far declined to say whether it could offer the players asylum.
Asked about their case on Sunday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia “stands in solidarity” with the people of Iran.
The son of Iran’s late shah, US-based Reza Pahlavi, warned on Monday that the refusal to sing the anthem could have “dire consequences,” and urged Australia to offer the team protection.
Trump then weighed in, pressing Albanese to “give ASYLUM” to the team and adding: “The US will take them if you won’t.”
“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed,” the US leader said on Truth Social.
Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarchy, has billed himself as the man to lead a democratic transition to a secular Iran as the theocratic regime fights to survive.
Politicians, human rights activists and even “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling have also called for the team to be offered official protection.
“Please, protect these young women,” Rowling said in a post on social media.
‘Save our girls’
A presenter on Iranian state TV had branded the players “wartime traitors” after they stood motionless during the anthem before their match against South Korea.
In subsequent games, the players saluted and sang.
Crowds gathered outside the Gold Coast stadium where the side played their last match over the weekend, banging drums and shouting “regime change for Iran.”
They then surrounded the Iranian team bus, chanting “let them go” and “save our girls.”
On Monday, an AFP journalist saw members of the team speaking on phones from their balcony of their hotel.
Asked about the possibility of granted asylum, a spokesperson for Australia’s Home Affairs department told AFP earlier it “cannot comment on the circumstances of individuals.”
Amnesty International campaigner Zaki Haidari said they faced persecution, or worse, if they were sent home.
“Some of these team members probably have had their families already threatened,” Haidari told AFP.
“Them going back... who knows what sort of punishment they will receive?“
Despite being heavily monitored, the side would have a “small window of opportunity” to seek asylum at the airport, he said.
Iran’s embassy in Australia did not respond to a request for comment.
