Reactions to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests having occurred in Tiananmen Square itself. Yuan Mu portrayed the crackdown as a response to "a counterrevolutionary rebellion in the early hours of the morning of June 3." In August, 1989, the Chinese government released its complete, official account of the Tiananmen protests, "The Truth About the Beijing Turmoil". The narrative presented in "The Truth About the Beijing Turmoil" differs significantly from the accounts of student leaders and foreign journalists, many of which are banned in China. On the origins of the protest the book states: This contradicts the statements of student leaders, who emphasised the spontaneous nature of their
Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident practitioners, but were not scrutinised for the methods they used. This resulted in the widespread use of torture, sometimes resulting in death. Tiananmen Square was one of the main venues where Falun Gong practitioners gathered to protest the persecution, usually by raising banners in defence of the group, or stage peaceful meditation sit-ins. Ian Johnson of the "Wall Street Journal" estimated that by 25 April 2000, more than 30,000 practitioners had been arrested for attempting to demonstrate in Beijing, most of them in or on the way to Tiananmen Square. Seven hundred Falun Gong followers were arrested during a demonstration