Tiananmen anniversary prompts raised security at Zhao Ziyang’s family home
- Late Communist Party leader’s friends and relatives face heightened police checks before paying their respects as part of traditional festival
- Security tighter than previous years
Police surveillance around the late Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang’s family residence was tightened on Friday, as friends and relatives paid tribute to the purged Communist Party leader on China’s tomb sweeping day, ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen student-led protests.
The annual Ching Ming Festival, as the day is known, is traditionally a time for paying respects to the departed.
All visitors to the Zhao family home had to go through police and security checks and were only allowed in after they had been personally greeted by family members outside the courtyard home in Beijing.
“Police security is tighter this year [than in previous years]. The monitoring area stretches from the hutongs (alleys) around our home to the main road,” said Wang Yannan, Zhao's daughter, on Friday.
She suggested this year’s 30th anniversary of the student-led movement was probably one of the factors behind the tightened security.