China tightens security as Tiananmen date nears: Dissidents' families are being harassed, writes Teresa Poole from Peking

THE Commonwealth diplomatic wives' annual charity fair in Peking is not normally considered a nest of counter-revolutionary thought. But Sunday's event was nearly cancelled at the last minute when China's public security apparatus put pressure on the hotel venue to halt the bazaar.

The wives eventually won through. Less fortunate was a foreign reporter who had planned his leaving party for the weekend in a restaurant in the embassy area of the city. By mid-afternoon, the electricity supply had been cut. By evening, the road blocks were in place and security officers were staked out around the nearby park.

The run-up to 4 June is always tense in Peking but this time, the fifth anniversary of the brutal army crackdown in 1989, the level of security has reached almost ludicrous proportions. Tiananmen Square itself is crawling with uniformed and plain-clothed officials, whispering into walkie-talkies beneath their sun-hats. The estimated 50,000 People's Armed Police based in Peking are working overtime, supported by tens of thousands of Public Security Bureau cadres.

For those families who bear the scars of the shootings five years ago, such as Ding Zilin, the harassment can be unbearable. Mrs Ding's 17-year-old son was shot and killed in the crackdown, and since then she has been vocal in calling for an accounting of those who died. At the weekend, she and her husband issued a statement saying that they would go on hunger strike during the anniversary unless the police agents stopped following them. 'We are people who should not be penned up like animals in a zoo,' she said.

While the world - and most Chinese - now focuses on China's economic boom, the families directly affected by June 1989 can only mourn privately. It is still unknown how many hundreds were killed, and how many people remain in jail on charges related to the pro-democracy movement. Information about the circumstances in which people were killed, and who is still in jail, is difficult to obtain because families are too frightened to speak out. In a report published today, Amnesty International lists the names of 75 people it believes were killed in June 1989, with details of their deaths. Amnesty alleges that its examples show that troops deliberately shot and killed individuals who posed no threat of violence, and carried out extra-judicial executions when the army was already in control of the cities.

The Amnesty report also includes examples of the large numbers of people scattered around China who received long sentences in the wake of the pro-democracy movement. The government says all the students have now been released from prison, but the majority of those who took part in demonstrations were ordinary workers or professional people who received much harsher sentences than the students.

Among the hundreds still incarcerated are Chen Lantao, 31, a marine biologist, who is serving an 18- year sentence in Shandong province for allegedly being a ringleader of the students in Qingdao city. In the same city, Sun Weibang, a 48-year-old restaurant owner and veteran pro-democracy activist, was sentenced to 12 years.

Zhao Sujian, 38, who was a government official in the Keifeng Housing Construction Company in Henen province, was sentenced to 12 years for putting up 'reactionary slogans'. And Wang Xinlong, 50, formerly an assistant professor of political studies at Shanxi University, is serving an eight-year sentence for giving public speeches criticising the military crackdown.