The American photographer who shot the iconic image of a man standing in front of tanks at the 1989 Tiananmen protests says it's time for the Chinese government to come clean about the bloody events of 30 years ago.
Jeff Widener was an Associated Press photo editor based in Bangkok when he was called in to help cover a growing student-led pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Jeff Widener took the iconic 1989 photo of a Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square. Source: AAP
The day after the military crushed the protests on June 3-4, Widener took the shot of an unknown man holding shopping bags facing a row of tanks. The photo of "tank man" became one of the most famous images of defiance of the 20th century.
Widener says he doesn't understand why China's leaders won't reveal the truth behind the crackdown.
According to The Tiananmen Papers, a set of leaked documents that allegedly cover internal Communist Party meetings and reports, protests ignited across more than 100 cities in China at the end of May.
"This was a nationwide mass movement -- this was a people's movement -- where everyone shared, at a bare minimum, a desire for more freedoms and more rights," said Andrea Worden, who taught English at the Hunan Medical College in 1989 and witnessed mass protests in central Hunan province.
But in part due to the lack of foreign media outside the capital, many stories from the provinces have been lost as Chinese authorities systematically erase and re-write history, and punish those who question it.
"It's a matter of time before it completely disappears," Worden said.
Additional reporting: AFP
