Never-Before-Seen 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre Photos
For decades, film rolls containing more
than 2,000 photos documenting the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement had
been shut inside a metal box, never known to the world.
These photos, taken by a Chinese state
media photographer and having survived the ensuing political purge campaigns
after the massacre, eventually made their way to the United States, and were
recently entrusted to The Epoch Times.
Now, The Epoch Times is making the photos
public for the first time.
Thousands of people are estimated to have died on June 4 at the hands of the Chinese communist regime 37 years ago.
Armed soldiers enter Beijing on the eve of the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989.
Communist authorities, framing a peaceful student-led movement as a riot to disrupt social order, hunted down participants nationwide while instituting systematic ideological reeducation to erase from history all but their version of events.
People gather near Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound,
following the death of reform-minded leader Hu Yaobang in Beijing in 1989.
The photos, now scanned and digitized, provide a glimpse of those fleeting weeks in the spring of 1989 when hope hung thick in the air and more freedoms seemed so close at hand—until the gunfire proved otherwise.
(Left) Pro-democracy protesters during a demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. (Right) Bullet holes left after Chinese authorities opened fire to suppress the pro-democracy movement in Beijing in 1989. Provided to The Epoch Times
Among those in the photos are students on hunger strike,
wearing white cloth bands around their foreheads. They’re shown linking arms
and staging million-strong street protests, with academics, media
professionals, and military officers joining in solidarity. When the troops
came in, these students—and civilian supporters—resisted with barricades and
their own bodies.
Students link arms in a parade during the Tiananmen pro-democracy
movement in 1989.
NOTE: I copied and pasted the extra photos from the arrows below:
Some of the photos show military officers waving to
protesters. In one, several smile as they accept youtiao, golden brown fried
dough sticks that are a Beijing breakfast staple. In another, a uniformed
officer makes a victory sign amid a sea of protesters, many of whom are doing
the same.
But their upbeat spirit didn’t last long.
Late into the night on June 3, heavily armed troops marched
in again. This time, they didn’t hesitate to fire on
civilians—indiscriminately.
Burned vehicles, toppled barricades, and bloodstains on the ground during and after the suppression of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in June 1989. Provided to The Epoch Times
The photographer documented bullet holes in a window and
injured men on stretchers with blood soaking through their coverings.
An eyewitness description of seeing six student protesters’ bloodied
bodies in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the early morning of June 4, 1989. Provided
to The Epoch Times
“There were smashed heads, ruptured stomachs, and spilling intestines. Around them were mangled arms and legs, some still bleeding,” one eyewitness wrote on a public poster dated June 4. Those were the bodies of six student protesters, the witness said, adding that everyone around—except for the soldiers—was crying.
An eyewitness description of seeing six student protesters’
bloodied bodies in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the early morning of June 4,
1989. Provided to The Epoch Times
The topic remains taboo in China.
The Chinese authorities have harassed a number of people they
deemed to have been involved in providing the photos, including both Chinese
nationals and citizens of the United States and Canada.
“Act quickly to eliminate the impact, stop posting them,”
read one message from a Chinese police officer, which The Epoch Times obtained.
Failing that, the officer warned, the targeted person would get on Interpol’s
red notice, arrested, and sent back to China.
If that happened, the officer said, his entire family would
suffer.
Interpol told The Epoch Times that its special task force
reviews every notice request from each member country for compliance with its
constitution, which requires the organization to conform with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and not “undertake activities of a political,
military, religious, or racial character.”
Another person threatened by the police officer told the
officer that they are Canadian citizens.
“You are Canadian citizens—you all are, but your relatives
are Chinese citizens,” the police replied, according to screenshots The Epoch
Times viewed.
When the individual suggested they would cut ties with their
relatives in China—with whom they have lost touch for more than a decade—the
officer was unmoved.
“It’s too late,” the officer wrote.
A third person familiar with the issue said the authorities were actively collecting their personal details, sending the individual’s photo to relatives in China along with intimidating messages. The photo was meant as a warning: the regime knows who they are.
The Chinese police think they can enforce rules beyond
China’s borders, the person, a U.S. citizen, told The Epoch Times. “They are
arrogant enough to think that whatever the Communist Party says is the law
anywhere,” the source said.
The targeted individuals have reported the intimidation
tactics to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The Canadian
Security Intelligence Service is also aware of the matter.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who spoke at a presser
commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, said the Chinese
police’s actions amounted to “gaslighting.”
“They want you to forget, they want you to forget everything
that’s happened in the past, and they want you to have a different impression
of reality,” he told The Epoch Times. “I don’t think that people are going to
forget, nor should they in any way be coerced into forgetting.”
Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select
Committee on China, organized the June 4 press event.
He called the Chinese regime’s behavior “nuts.”
The Chinese Communist Party is actively engaged in
transnational repression on American shores, he told The Epoch Times. “It’s a
huge concern,” he said, adding that it’s all the more important that more
“courageous leaders” can keep coming out with the truth.
Across China, communist officials have stepped up measures to
censor any mention of the massacre ahead of the
anniversary, as they have done every year.
Several activists told The Epoch Times that security officers
had followed dissidents to ensure they didn’t do anything out of line. Some
reported restrictions on their movements. Others described police ordering them
not to try circumventing the internet firewall or post comments online.
Chinese military general Xu Qinxian in May 1989 paid the
price for defying the Communist Party when he refused verbal orders to deploy
troops against the demonstrators.
For his defiance, he was stripped of his command of the elite
38th Group Army and jailed for five years.
In a closed-door trial, he recalled telling a political
commissar that he’d rather lose the job than risk becoming “a person condemned
by history,” footage that emerged in late 2025 shows.
Play Video by accessing the link at the end
Footage of the secret trial of Chinese military general Xu Qinxian, who refused orders to deploy troops to Beijing in May 1989. He was stripped of command of the elite 38th Group Army and imprisoned for five years. Human Rights in China
Enes Kanter Freedom, a former NBA player who has championed
persecuted groups in communist China, said he wasn’t surprised to hear about
the Chinese regime’s suppression over the release of the Tiananmen photos.
“The Chinese Communist Party will erase everything from
history that is going to be used against them,” he told The Epoch Times.
He recalled seeing his name pulled from the Boston Celtics
roster on Chinese media portal Sohu after he highlighted China’s persecuted
groups on social media. Chinese internet giant Tencent, which had a five-year
NBA broadcasting deal, pulled livestreams of all Celtics games—a sign of “how big
of a dictatorship” Beijing is, Freedom said.
“It’s very shameful,” and it’s one more reason why there
needs to be more voices from the West to “expose their hypocrisy,” he said.
Pro-democracy students stage hunger strikes in Tiananmen Square in
Beijing in the spring of 1989. The banner in front of them reads, “Liberty or
death.”
The third source was in elementary school when the democracy movement happened.
Too young then to understand, the individual handed food and
water to the students and saw them as brothers and sisters. To be able to shed
more light on it now is an honor, the person said.
The photos, the source said, reveal the awakening back then
of people from all segments of society, including many deeply embedded in the
Communist Party system.
They are a testament that “Chinese people have guts,” the
individual said. “They are different from the Chinese Communist Party, and they
know right from wrong.”
And no matter how the regime tries to “exert power and hide
the truth,” the person said, there’s a limit to what coercion can achieve.
“It can make threats and inflict pain on people and their loved ones, but people have a soul, and that it can never kill,” the source said.
The present “darkness” is temporary, and at the end of it, there will be light, the source said
More Photos here:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/exclusive-never-before-seen-1989-tiananmen-square-massacre-photos-released-6042652?&utm_source=MB_article_paid_f&utm_campaign=MB_article_2026-06-05-ca&utm_medium=email&est=V%2Fc%2Bo0UxDWWmbmfSfvb5s6SI9mlzadvWon7sfw0dNT6opdbUCZN1jRl09QfwTSBXPMpO&utm_content=highlight-news-1
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