MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT:

BEIJING (Reuters) – A lone man staged a short-lived demonstration on Tiananmen Square Thursday night, the eve of the 15th anniversary of China’s bloody military crackdown on democracy protests, a witness said.

The man, about 50 years old, kneeled briefly to pray at the foot of the Monument to the Peoples’ Heroes at the center of the square, where tens of thousands of students gathered from April to June 1989 to press demands for democratic reform.

He was swiftly taken away by police, according to a Reuters photographer who witnessed the scene. Police in plain clothes and in uniform routinely comb the square on sensitive anniversaries, snuffing out protests as quickly as they start.

Indeed. And nobody seems to care all that much.

UPDATE: And there’s this:

The Beijing doctor who exposed China’s cover-up of severe acute respiratory syndrome disappeared from his home, his daughter said on Thursday, apparently as part of a security crackdown ahead of the anniversary of the 1989 massacre against Tiananmen Square protesters. . . .

Dr Jiang sent a graphic letter to senior leaders on the Beijing massacre earlier this year during the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress calling for the government to admit its handling of the incident was wrong.

The letter quoted two of the top Chinese leaders involved in ordering the troops into central Beijing as admitting the verdict should be overturned.

The detention of Dr Jiang and others is a reminder that while the 1989 killings may be fading in popular memory, they remain a source of deep division and sensitivity within the party itself.

The good news is that there’s still dissent to be crushed.