A brief overview of the events surrounding June 4th, 1989, including translated clips from the full interviews of Cheng Zhen, Chang Jing, Wang Zhixin, Zhai Weimin, and Han Dongfang.

A vice president of the Preparatory Committee of the Peking University Independent Student Union in 1989, Chang describes surveys conducted by students, with help from the Red Cross, of the wounded and dead in Beijing’s hospitals following the June Fourth crackdown. 

Ding is a former spokesperson for the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of more than 100 victims and family members of the victims of the June Fourth crackdown. She reads sections of the group’s 2006 letter to President Hu Jingtao seeking reassessment of the 1989 Democracy Movement and lawful compensation to the families of the crackdown victims, and describes the surveillance and harassment to which she and her husband were subjected. 

A leader of the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation during the 1989 Democracy Movement, Li was imprisoned for one and a half years for organizing activities to mark the first anniversary of June Fourth. In 1995, he was sentenced to nine years for “prying into and gathering state secrets” after he collected names of those punished in connection with the 1989 movement. Li recalls his personal experience during the night of June 3-4, 1989.

A student at the Beijing Film Academy in 1989, Ma was one of the organizers of the hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. He was convicted of counterrevolutionary incitement and imprisoned for three years. Ma describes the retreat of students from Tiananmen Square as the crackdown began and the dead and wounded he saw there the night of June 3-4 and the following day.

An organizer at Peking University, Peng was imprisoned for two years after organizing activities to mark the first anniversary of June Fourth at Peking University. He gives an account of his experience before and during his participation in the 1989 Democracy Movement.

A student at Peking University, Wang was an organizer of the 1989 Democracy Movement, for which activity he was imprisoned for four years. He was sentenced to 11 years in 1998 for helping to organize the China Democracy Party, and was forced into exile in 2004. He recounts his thoughts about the 1989 movement, his participation in it, and his subsequent arrest. 

A graduate student of law at Peking University and a member of the Students' Dialogue Group, Xiong was arrested on June 13, 1989 and held for 19 months without due process. He describes the events preceding and the early period of the 1989 Democracy Movement, as well as his participation in the movement.

Zhang, a participant in the 1989 Democracy Movement who was wounded, remembers his experience and the difficulties he faced during his subsequent hospitalization.