Politician known abroad for his role in crushing 1989 Tiananmen Square protests

The former Chinese premier Li Peng, reviled by rights activists and many in the Chinese capital as the “Butcher of Beijing” for his role in the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests, has died, according to state media.

Li, who was 90, died on Monday in Beijing, Xinhua reported, more than three decades after his government authorised a bloody suppression of student-led pro-democracy protests in the early hours of 4 June 1989.

Thirty years ago, a Chinese man, carrying his shopping, stood in front of a column of tanks from the People’s Liberation Army in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Tank Man, as he became known, became an iconic image from the protests. His stand was the culmination of weeks of clashes between Chinese pro-democracy protesters and the government, during which thousands of people are thought to have been killed

• Beijing falls silent as tight security surrounds Tiananmen Square anniversary

Thirty years after bloody crackdown in China, visitors have IDs checked and journalists are warned against taking pictures

China has been marking 30 years since its deadly crackdown on student demonstrators in Beijing with silence and extra security measures.

The government has worked to suppress discussion of one of the darkest chapters in its history, when Beijing deployed tanks and troops to put down a countrywide movement calling for democratic reforms.

He was just a kid, but he cried like an old man in despair.” Liane was trying hard to steady her emotions when she described to me how she had attempted to hold back a young boy whose unarmed brother had been shot by soldiers during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Liane was a student from Hong Kong when the 1989 Tiananmen movement erupted and she went to Beijing to support the demonstrations. On the night of 3 June, when 200,000 soldiers equipped with tanks and AK-47s were deployed against unarmed civilians, she was outside the Museum of the Chinese Revolution on the north-east corner of Tiananmen Square. She fainted after she failed to stop the young boy from dashing toward the soldiers, and was carried away covered with blood.