BEIJING, June 3 (UPI) -- Chinese police and universities took steps to deal with demonstrations on the 24th anniversary of what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Activists said they would wear black clothing.
University officials were told efforts to prevent and control demonstrations marking the anniversary Monday and Tuesday must be "tight within" but appear "relaxed outside," The New York Times reported.
June 4 is considered the official anniversary date.
Police presence around Tiananmen Square has been heavy but could not prevent someone tossing flyers out of the window of a bus. Police stopped traffic to pick up the flyers, which have been used in the past to get out political messages.
Chinese censorship of the Internet has been increased, The Hollywood Reporter said.
On Monday, access to an uncensored version of Wikipedia was blocked while Sina Weibo, a messaging service similar to Twitter, began filtering comments in a way that made it appear few people were commenting on the anniversary.
Protests at the square in 1989 ended with government troops firing on demonstrators, killing hundreds and perhaps thousands of people.
The government has never revealed how many people were killed or prosecuted anyone for the deaths. It refers to the protesters as counter-revolutionaries.
Tiananmen Mothers, a group comprised of women who lost children at the protests, issued a statement signed by 123 women that says they have been ignored by the government for the past two decades but would not give up their fight for justice.
A statement Friday by the U.S. State Department calling on China to "end harassment of those who participated in the protests and fully account for those killed, detained, or missing" was called "political prejudice" by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.
