CBC-China limits dissidents at Zhao memorial

[IMG]http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/topstory/news/china_flag_generic.gif[/IMG]

BEIJING - Dissidents in China have been ordered to stay home as the government prepares for Saturday's tightly reined-in memorial service for Zhao Ziyang.


INDEPTH: Zhao timeline

The Chinese government has approved about 2,000 mourners for ceremonies at Beijing's main cemetery for revolutionary heroes. The list does not include Chinese President Hu Jintao or other senior leaders.

Zhao, the late Communist party leader who sympathized with pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, died on Jan. 17 after spending his last 15 years under house arrest.

Aside from a two-sentence official notice, the Chinese government has downplayed Zhao's death. State media reports have been suppressed, and internet references of the death erased.

Details of the memorial haven't been released to the public, but the government says it will be a "ceremony for bidding the body farewell." It's a lower status ceremony than a state funeral.

A former premier and party leader, Zhao helped launch China's reforms under then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping. But the two men fell out after Zhao sympathized with the pro-democracry demonstrators at Tiananmen Square.

An unknown number of people were killed when Chinese troops and tanks crushed a student-led protest on June 4, 1989.

The hard line reaction caused international condemnation of the Chinese government.