Tiananmen stop near Tiananmen. Tiananmen The Tiananmen or Tian'anmen (), or the Gate of Heavenly Peace, is a monumental gate in the centre of Beijing, widely used as a national symbol of China. First built during the Ming dynasty in 1420, Tiananmen was the entrance to the Imperial City, within which the Forbidden City was located. Tiananmen is located to the north of Tiananmen Square, separated from the plaza by Chang'an Avenue. The Chinese name of the gate (/), is made up of the Chinese characters for "heaven," "peace" and "gate" respectively, which is why the name is conventionally translated as
Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident verification about the victims" raised questions about whether authorities had advanced knowledge of the self-immolation. Police were on the scene of the self-immolation within 90 seconds carrying numerous pieces of firefighting equipment. A European journalist was quoted as saying "I have never seen policemen patrolling on Tiananmen Square carrying fire extinguishers. How come they all showed up today? The location of the incident is at least 20 minutes roundtrip from the nearest building – the People's Great Hall." John Gittings of "The Guardian" stated, however, that it was common practice in many countries for police camera operators to be on