The Country Marches for the Right to Speak
4th May, 1989 (Thu)
"We want to speak the truth!"
Tens of thousands of students marched through the streets of Beijing to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the May 4th Movement and to press for democracy and freedom of the press. Despite an order by the authorities that the square would be closed, the students marched through the rings of police guarding Tiananmen Square; other Beijing residents joined them.
Up to three hundred thousand people gathered at the central square at the height of the demonstrations. Fifty one Beijing colleges and some thirty colleges from other provinces participated in the demonstration. Notable among the protestors were 500 journalists, demanding the rights to report truthfully. The demonstration started at 8 am and ended at 4pm.
Protest leaders from the Autonomous Students' Federation announced that the two week class boycott would end the next day. The students also organised a delegation for future dialogues with the government.
General Secretary Zhao Ziyang made a speech at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, saying that he believed that the demonstrators reflected the general attitudes of the CPC and the government. He said that "problems should only be solved in a democratic and legalistic manner."
Thousands of other demonstrations took place in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and other cities.
U.S president Geroge Bush openly supported the student demonstrators' demands. He also urged China, the Soviet Union, and other totalitarian nations to accept democracy.
Exhibition Pack on the Tiananmen Massacre 
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Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China