Tank Man

"Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you!"

"Go back! Turn around! Stop killing my people!"

"I don't think this man was killed by the tank. I can't confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not. I think that he was never killed."

"He was never arrested. I don't know where he is now."

"By putting his life on the line in front of his government's tanks, he provided not only one of the most memorable images of the last 35 years but one of the most inspiring too. The free China of the future owes him a statue or two."

"Twenty years ago, on June 5, 1989, following weeks of huge protests in Beijing and a crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds, a lone man stepped in front of a column of tanks rumbling past Tiananmen Square. The moment instantly became a symbol of the protests as well as a symbol against oppression worldwide — an anonymous act of defiance seared into our collective consciousnesses."

"On June 5th, 1989 one individual had enough of the oppression he and others had long-endured from one of the biggest and most ruthless gangs ever to exist. Left with few other options after decades of rights-usurpations, the man stood up to the aggressors and very literally put his life on the line by standing in front of a column of tanks. Though never identified with absolute certainty, he became known as The Tank Man."

"He risked a good and honorable death to stand up nonviolently for what is right."

"The Tank Man represents the independence and the liberties. Now I call him a hero, but today who are our "heroes"? I mean, from the media? They're always people in our military who have killed a lot of other people: the people who are great sharpshooters, the people who drop bombs, the people who run drone missiles. And they never get criticised in the major media for killing innocents. But they become "hero." Everybody that has a uniform now is a "hero." But what about somebody who wants to tell the truth? What if you have an Edward Snowden who finally speaks out and talks about the truth? He becomes a "traitor" in their eyes. I call Edward Snowden a true hero like the Tank Man."