Families of Chinese democracy protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have urged President Xi Jinping to acknowledge their suffering and "re-evaluate the June Fourth massacre" as its 29th anniversary approaches.
Open discussion of the crackdown is forbidden in China, where hundreds -- by some estimates more than a thousand -- died when the Communist Party sent tanks to crush demonstrations in the square in Beijing on June 4 1989, after student-led protesters had staged a peaceful seven-week sit-in to demand democratic reforms.