This picture is part of a historic series captured by Cambodian photographer Khiang H Hei, depicting the events surrounding the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Hei was studying in Beijing at the time, and was moved by the student activists’ call for political reform. Compelled to document the movement as it unfolded, he paid endless visits to Tiananmen Square to photograph the various hunger strikes and marches leading up to the devastating events of 4 June. No one knows the death toll from Tiananmen that night; the murdered protesters were branded dangerous rioters by the authorities that slayed them, their lives thereafter written out of history. So images such as this—of their truly peaceful, hopeful plea for freedom—are of vital, albeit heartbreaking, importance.
