Silence, security in Beijing on 30th Tiananmen anniversary
Beijing: China marked 30 years since the deadly Tiananmen crackdown on Tuesday with a wall of silence and extra security after arresting activists and tightening internet censorship ahead of the politically sensitive anniversary.
On a grey, overcast day, police checked the identification cards of every tourist and commuter leaving the subway near Tiananmen Square, the site of the pro-democracy protests that were brutally extinguished by tanks and soldiers on June 4, 1989.
Foreign journalists were not allowed onto the square at all or warned by police not to take pictures.
The United States marked the occasion by hailing the "heroic" movement of 1989 and denouncing a "new wave of abuses" in China.
But in China the Communist Party made sure that the anniversary remained in the distant past, detaining several activists in the run-up to June 4 while popular livestreaming sites conspicuously shut down for "technical" maintenance.
Over the years, the party has censored any discussion of the protests and crackdown, which left hundreds, possibly more than 1,000, dead -- ensuring that people either never learn about what happened or fear detention if they dare discuss it openly.
The party and its high-tech police apparatus have tightened control over civil society since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, rounding up activists, rights lawyers and even Marxist students who sympathised with labour movements.
Countless surveillance cameras are perched on lampposts in and around Tiananmen Square.
"It's not that we don't care. We know what happened," said a driver for the DiDi ride-hailing service who was born in 1989.
"But how can I tell you, the DiDi app is recording our conversation in the car," he said.
"But today's China has changed. If you have money you have everything. Without money you dare not open your mouth." It was largely business as usual at Tiananmen on Tuesday: Hundreds of people, including children waving small Chinese flags while sitting on their parents' shoulders, lined up at the security checkpoint before dawn to watch the daily flag-raising at the square.
But the line moved slowly due to extra security -- with IDs matched on facial recognition screens -- and dozens were unable to watch the event.
When asked whether it crossed her mind that she was visiting the square on the 30th anniversary, a nursing school graduate in her 20s from eastern Shandong province said, "What do you mean? No, it didn't cross my mind."
Her mother jumped in to say, "We don't think of that past."
But there were rare public acknowledgements of June 4 this year.
China's defence minister, General Wei Fenghe, on Sunday defended the crackdown as the "correct" policy to end "political turbulence" at the time.
The nationalistic state-run tabloid Global Times hailed the government's handling of Tiananmen as a "vaccination" for Chinese society that "will greatly increase China's immunity against any major political turmoil in the future".
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sharply disagreed on how China has evolved as he hailed the "heroic protest movement" in a statement for the anniversary.
"Over the decades that followed, the United States hoped that China's integration into the international system would lead to a more open, tolerant society. Those hopes have been dashed," Pompeo said amid a tense US-China showdown on trade.
Pompeo denounced the "new wave of abuses" by China, including the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in the far-west Xinjiang region, and urged a full account of what happened 30 years ago.
In spring 1989, students and workers gathered at Tiananmen Square -- the symbolic heart of Chinese power -- demanding democratic change and an end to corruption, inspiring protests across the country.
After seven weeks of demonstrations, the government deployed tanks and soldiers who chased and killed demonstrators and onlookers in the streets leading to the square on June 4.
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Broken relationships don't automatically amount to abetment of suicide: SC
New Delhi (PTI): Broken relationships, while emotionally distressing, do not automatically amount to abetment of suicide in the absence of intention leading to the criminal offence, the Supreme Court on Friday said.
The observations came from a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Ujjal Bhuyan in a judgement, which overturned the conviction of one Kamaruddin Dastagir Sanadi by the Karnataka High Court for the offences of cheating and abetment of suicide under the IPC.
"This is a case of a broken relationship, not criminal conduct," the judgment said.
Sanadi was initially charged under Sections 417 (cheating), 306 (abetment of suicide), and 376 (rape) of the IPC.
While the trial court acquitted him of all the charges, the Karnataka High Court, on the state's appeal, convicted him of cheating and abetment of suicide, sentencing him to five years imprisonment and imposing Rs 25,000 in fine.
According to the FIR registered at the mother's instance, her 21-year-old daughter was in love with the accused for the past eight years and died by suicide in August, 2007, after he refused to keep his promise to marry.
Writing a 17-page judgement, Justice Mithal analysed the two dying declarations of the woman and noted that neither was there any allegation of a physical relationship between the couple nor there was any intentional act leading to the suicide.
The judgement therefore underlined broken relationships were emotionally distressing, but did not automatically amount to criminal offences.
"Even in cases where the victim dies by suicide, which may be as a result of cruelty meted out to her, the courts have always held that discord and differences in domestic life are quite common in society and that the commission of such an offence largely depends upon the mental state of the victim," said the apex court.
The court further said, "Surely, until and unless some guilty intention on the part of the accused is established, it is ordinarily not possible to convict him for an offence under Section 306 IPC.”
The judgement said there was no evidence to suggest that the man instigated or provoked the woman to die by suicide and underscored a mere refusal to marry, even after a long relationship, did not constitute abetment.
