Open Letter by Intellectuals

21st Apr, 1989 (Fri)

People's Daily published an editorial, warning that "those who disrupted the political stability and unity will be punished by law".

Angered by the police brutality and by the government's version of the two Xinhuamen clashes, students at major universities in Beijing began boycotting classes.

At that night, the day before Hu’s funeral, some 100,000 students march on Tiananmen square, gathering there before the square can be closed off for the funeral. Masses of Beijing residents swelled the crowd to 200,000.

47 prominent liberal intellectuals, led by the poet Bei Dao, who had initiated a signature drive to free Wei Jingsheng early that spring, delivered an open letter to the Central Committee supporting the students' demands.