DECEMBER 2, 2011
The now infamous pepper-spraying incident involving students at UC Davis November 18th makes me think of many other notable student protests that have ended in violence-- Arab Spring and students protesting at Tahir Square, Kent State, and Tiananmen Square. For me, the Tiananmen Square protests were notable because I had a chance to intern with CNN Beijing in ’94 and log hours of video in the days surrounding June 4th 1989 massacre. It’s chilling to think that those pro-democracy student protests ended with martial law being declared by the government and the military shooting and killing hundreds of protesters. Five years after that Tiananmen Square protests, the government was still censoring television news coverage of that event. I know because every time a story made reference to the event, the tv screen would go to black. I remember how strange that seemed the first time I was sitting in the CNN Beijing bureau inside an apartment in the diplomatic compound and the video turned to “snow.”
When I think back to those days in China, I realize how lucky we are to have the right to protest virtually anywhere in the U.S. We have the right to protest. And, the media can cover it without worrying about being censored.
-sphan
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