newspaper photograph

[druiaghtagh]

 What happened to the young man in stood in front of the Chinese tanks in Tiannamen Square please?

[jno]

doesn't appear that he was ever convincingly identified, so nobody knows. See this Wikipedia article

[betty-nugs]

I remember being told at school that he was arrested, executed and his family made to pay for the bullet he was shot with.  No idea if this is true or not.

:D

[twiglet4frog]

it was in the news a few years back that he was executed for what he did, not sure about the whole bullett family thing tho

[Bangkok]

He has never been identified (he was Time person for his heroics). 

If someone is executed by firing squad, the family have to pay 7 Reminbi (just less than one pound) for the bullet, but not in this case

[Aschenbach]

I've got a tiny bit to add if I may. 'Tiannamen' square is always mispronounced in the West. It's actually Tian-an-men 天安门 (The Gate of Heavenly Peace - ironically) and is spoken as written.

Interesting question (and answers).

[Octavius]

I don't know about the man in question, but as recent as June last year, people were being arrested and detained by the Chinese authorities for either helping the students (a doctor who treated injured
students during the June 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square was arrested with his wife and son in June 2004).  Members of the Tiannanmen Mothers or anyone attempting to arrange an anniversary demonstration. 

According to current estimates, as many as two-hundred-and-fifty Chinese are still serving prison sentences for Tiananmen-related activities. The world does not know the exact numbers of those killed, wounded or arrested because, sixteen years later, the government of China still has not provided an accounting. Instead, the government has imposed a near complete blackout of information about the event.

See:

http://www.amnesty.org/actnow/

and

http://www.fillthesquare.org/factsheet.asp

[lindapinda]

I have to say Octavius,I had never really considered Chinese human rights violations until I read The Wild Swans.An amazing book.