China to Free Student Protesters : Action Follows a Midnight March by 5,000 in Peking

Chinese authorities agreed early today to free a group of students detained during an extraordinary New Year’s Day demonstration for democracy at Peking’s Tian An Men Square after about 5,000 young people staged a midnight protest march demanding their release.

The government had announced earlier that the police had taken “a few people” away from the demonstration “for education and interrogation.”

But students at Peking University, China’s most prestigious educational institution, marched first to the home of University President Ding Shisun and then into the streets of western Peking in a successful effort to pressure city officials to let the students go. The students said that 24 pro-democracy demonstrators had been detained.

During the four-hour protest in the heart of the nation’s capital earlier Thursday, the youthful demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Long live democracy” and “Freedom of the press.” It was the first major protest at Tian An Men Square in more than eight years.

Students See ‘Suppression’

Witnesses saw at least 12 participants being led away by the police during the demonstration. An official account by the New China News Agency did not specify the number of arrests but said that “a few people taking the lead in making troubles today were taken away.”

“The vigorous student movement was viciously suppressed,” according to a wallposter put up Thursday night at the university. “We strenuously demand the unconditional release of arrested students as well as a public apology to them and compensation for damage.”

The number of people who took part in Thursday’s demonstrations was much smaller than in Shanghai 11 days ago. In Shanghai, tens of thousands of people turned out for a pro-democracy demonstration. In Peking the students and their supporters at Tian An Men Square numbered about 4,000 to 5,000.

But the Peking demonstration carried greater political significance. Tian An Men is situated at the seat of government, just south of the Forbidden City where Chinese emperors once lived.

It was at Tian An Men, in 1919, that Chinese students sparked the May 4 Movement that aroused a tide of nationalism. And it was at Tian An Men, in 1966, that students rallied at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

Warned of Punishment

The students put on Thursday’s demonstration despite stern warnings in the official press that anyone who went to the square on New Year’s Day would be “seriously punished.”

In recent days, traditionalist forces in the Chinese Communist Party have seized upon the pro-democracy demonstrations to attack those in the Chinese leadership who want to loosen the party’s control over the political system.

Thursday morning, a front-page commentary in the party newspaper People’s Daily appeared to hint that the pro-democracy demonstrations have touched off new factional infighting in the party.

The newspaper said that some unidentified “people in ideological and cultural circles” had been airing opinions that served to spread “the trend of bourgeois liberalization.” It said it is imperative for loyal cadres to oppose the trend.

In advance of the planned New Year’s Day demonstrations, the authorities had watered the square to give it a thin glaze of ice and had virtually surrounded it with uniformed policemen.

In mid-morning, students began to gather individually at the north end of the square. Then suddenly they joined together in a group of a few hundred in front of two police vehicles trying to clear the square.

Swelled to Thousands

“It is the responsibility of everyone to preserve the stability of the capital,” one officer shouted.

When the police began shoving students away, some of the students began pushing back and breaking through police lines. As the skirmishing continued, the crowd swelled into the thousands.

The police succeeded in quieting the crowd, for a time, but shortly after noon about 2,000 protesters began marching around the edge of the square. Some carried banners that said, “Oppose the Reactionaries and Conservatives” and “Support Deng Xiaoping,” the national leader.

While many of the participants said they were students, some were young professionals, teachers and researchers, who said they support the students’ desire for democracy.

Police Seemed Restrained

The police used no night sticks, weapons or tear gas, and in most locations they seemed to be under orders to act with restraint. However, witnesses saw one demonstrator being kicked in the midsection as he was led away.

A wallposter at Peking University provided “an eyewitness account” of the demonstration from the students’ viewpoint. It said the police had “charged with their fists flying. . . . It was a very ugly scene.”

The official New China News Agency account said the demonstration “was staged at the instigation of a few ill-intentioned people.”

Word that some of the demonstrators had been detained spread quickly at Peking University, and Thursday night thousands of protesters moved out from the campus chanting, “Give us back our students!”

They headed toward downtown Peking, breaking through six separate police cordons. Finally, after a university official told the crowd that the detained students would be released and returned to the campus, the demonstrators began to disperse.