Beijing Reports 11 Arrests as Crowd Returns to Square

Chinese authorities today announced the first arrests connected with anti-government protests in Beijing as up to 100,000 people crowded the city center to see a 33-foot Statue of Liberty replica put up by defiant students.

On the 10th day of martial law, the official New China News Agency said that demonstrating motorbike riders had been arrested for disturbing public order and that 11 people were in custody while further investigations were carried out.

It was not known if the 11 included three leaders of a new, illegal trade union organization that backs the students. Hundreds of workers and students camped outside the police station demanding information about the three.

Convoys of Motorbikes

Convoys of motorbike riders scorched through Beijing at the height of pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this month when a student hunger strike sparked the biggest protests against the government since the Communists took power in 1949.

The news agency quoted a leader of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau as saying the riders had distributed leaflets, spread poisonous rumors, incited workers to strike and prevented military vehicles from entering Beijing.

Tens of thousands of people crowded the center of Beijing meanwhile to see the Statue of Liberty replica that defiant students unveiled in Tian An Men Square, the symbolic heart of Chinese communism.

Witnesses estimated that by mid-evening up to 100,000 people had poured into the square in a dramatic resurgence of popular interest in the democracy protests that had lost support on the streets after fears of a government crackdown. The numbers fell back to about 20,000 by midnight, the witnesses said.

State television quoted officials as saying the “Goddess of Democracy” statue, made of polystyrene and plaster, had been erected illegally and was a “humiliation of the Chinese nation in such a solemn place.”

‘This Is China, Not America’

It quoted a letter from an unnamed official demanding immediate action to stop the erection of the statue and said: “This is China, not America.”

People pressed around the replica taking photographs.