Days before the 15-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Dr. Liu Xiaobo, a well-known Chinese dissident and columnist for the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times, was taken away by Beijing police on May 28. Reports have speculated that his wife, Liu Xia, was also taken by the police at the same time.

On the same day, police in Nanjing and Shanghai also arrested a number of dissidents. According to the Independent Chinese PEN Center, Nanjing writer Yang Tianshui was arrested for organizing activities to commemorate the 15-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Wang Tiancheng, a Beijing scholar specializing in the political system and the effects of the Constitution, said he was under house arrest. Prior to that, the Department of Security asked him to leave Beijing, which he refused to do.

Dr. Jiang Yanyong, the whistleblower in last year’s SARS epidemic, appealed to the government to redress issues concerning the Tiananmen Square Massacre; he was also asked to leave Beijing. Dr. Jiang refused and is now under house arrest. Previously, Dr. Jiang had requested a visa to visit his daughter in the United States. Government officials denied that request.

Professor Ding Zilin, a leading organizer of the “Tiananmen Mothers” movement who lost her 17-year-old son to the Massacre, has also been placed under house arrest. According to sources inside China, the government implemented these large-scale suppression methods to silence any potentially unfavorable public opinion.