US calls for public account of Tiananmen dead, detained

The US government has asked Beijing to reveal how many protesters were killed in the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Wall Street Journal reported. This is a rare shift for the Obama administration, which has so far avoided questioning China’s human rights record. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Beijing needed to examine the "darker events of its past," free those still in prison for participating in the protests and provide a public account of those dead, missing or in prison for participating in the event. The demand was a repeat of one that past US administrations have made on the anniversary of the crackdown for the last few years. In Beijing, foreign journalists were barred from Tiananmen Square Wednesday and those who attempted to film on the square or interview dissidents were detained for short periods of time on charges of creating a disturbance, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said.