Tiananmen Square is used for parades, lies between the Tian'anmen and the square. Trees line the east and west edges of the Square, but the square itself is open, with neither trees nor benches. The square is lit with large lamp posts which are fitted with video cameras. It is heavily monitored by uniformed and plain-clothes police officers. Tiananmen Square has been the site of a number of political events and student protests. Perhaps the most notable events are protests during the May Fourth Movement in 1919, the proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949,
Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident and expert on Falun Gong, Pan's portrayal of Liu Chunlin is highly inconsistent with the typical profile of a Falun Gong practitioner. The identities of participants on Tiananmen Square was also called into question by a CNN producer on the scene. While the Chinese government claimed that a 12-year-old Liu Siying had set herself on fire at the urging of her mother, the CNN producer said that she did not see any children among the self-immolators. Several observers have noted that foreign journalists were not allowed to interview the self-immolation victims recovering in hospitals. Even the victims' relatives were not