In the spring of 1989, pro-democracy protests developed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, where students and others called for government accountability and freedom of the press, among other popular causes. Overnight on June 3rd and 4th—twenty-five years ago this Wednesday—the government enforced martial law, staging a bloody dispersal of the demonstrations, which killed between five hundred and twenty-five hundred people and initiated a new era of conservatism in the country. Here are photos from the protests and the crackdown.
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