Trying to report the news from Tiananmen 20 years on

The truly frightening thing is that, despite the rest of the world marking the event, inside China the utter thoroughness of the censorship surrounding today was insidious, over-arching and chilling. James Fallows of The Atlantic had some scary observations :

But to point a camera in any direction not shown in these shots is to ask for immediate trouble. In particular if security forces in any of the categories above are in the field of view. I say this with first-hand certainty, based on experiences I will describe later when I am living someplace else.

Oh, and apparently Beijing has taken to emulating the Penguin with super-villain-esque umbrellas in foiling the foreign media as well. Creatively non-violent but incredibly disturbing.

• human rights
• activism
• china
• campaigning
• censorship