Police keep tight security on Tiananmen Square

BEIJING -- Chinese police tore up a protester's poster and detained at least two people on Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Sunday as the country marked 17 years since local troops crushed a pro-democracy demonstration in the public space.\nAn elderly woman tried to pull out a poster with apparently political material written on it, but police ripped it up and then took her away in a van.\nA farmer tried to stage a protest apparently unrelated to the 1989 crackdown, but he also was taken away in a van.\nAfter dawn, a group of tourists tried to open a banner while posing for a photo, catching the attention of police, who quickly forced them to put the nonpolitical material away. They were not detained.\nDiscussion of the crackdown is still taboo in China outside of the semiautonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Chinese television news and major newspapers did not mention the anniversary.\nIn Hong Kong, several hundred people holding candles gathered at Victoria Park, creating a sea of lights covering four soccer fields. They observed a brief silence and organizers laid wreaths at a makeshift shrine dedicated to "martyrs of democracy."\nThe crowd also sang the pro-democracy song, "Freedom Flower," with the lyrics: "No matter how heavy the rain beats, freedom will blossom."\nOrganizers claimed 44,000 attended the commemoration, but police put the figure at 19,000. The crowd size was likely hurt by rainy weather in recent days and the lack of major political disputes.\n"I hope the Chinese government will recognize this dark history," Eric Lau, 14, said.\nRetiree Yan San, 74, said he has attended the annual commemoration in Hong Kong since its debut in 1990.\n"I have persisted in coming here for 17 years because I love freedom and democracy," he said.\nWang Dan, one of the 1989 protest leaders who was jailed and then exiled to the United States, said in a taped video message: "We don't want China to plunge into chaos nor do we want the ruling party to give up power. We only want the Chinese people to live freely and with dignity."\nChina's authoritarian government has stood by the suppression of what it has called "counterrevolutionary" riots, saying it preserved social stability and paved the way for economic growth.\nThe events of June 4, 1989, shocked Hong Kongers at a time when the territory was still a British colony but preparing to return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. The bloody suppression fueled fears that Beijing would extend its authoritarian rule to Hong Kong.\nChinese police monitored Tiananmen Square closely Sunday.\nAbout 2,000 police were on guard in and around Beijing's "petitioner's village," a cluster of cheap hostels popular with people from the provinces who have come to the capital to complain to the central government.\nWang said in an article published in Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper that he holds out hope China will loosen its political controls.\n"Although so far we can't see any loosening, personally I'm confident that day will come," he said. "Until the government reverses its position (on the 1989 protests), ordinary people won't easily forget the crackdown."\nHong Kong leader Donald Tsang, while in China's southwestern Yunnan province to attend a regional cooperation conference, urged his fellow citizens to look at the Tiananmen crackdown practically.\n"Mainland China has undergone a level of change that has gained the world's attention in the past 17 years. These changes have brought much prosperity to Hong Kong ... so Hong Kong people can make an objective judgment," Tsang said.\nHong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, a fierce democracy advocate, disagreed with Tsang.\n"How can we let it go? Should we just let it slide, forgive, pretend nothing happened? This is irresponsible. The successors of those responsible for the June 4 incident should give an explanation," Zen said.