WATCH: China Takes CNN Off The Air As Anderson Cooper Marks 35 Years Since Tiananmen Square Massacre

CNN was taken off the air in China on Tuesday night as Anderson Cooper marked the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, which the Chinese Communist Party does not allow to be discussed publicly in the country.

“Comes as no surprise that seconds after we teased the story at the end of the last segment, Chinese censors took our signal off the air,” Cooper noted as he began the segment, adding:

Today marks 35 years since China’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. 35 years ago today, Red Army tanks and troops moved in. Witnesses told horrifying stories of some opening fire. The next day, June 5th, 1989, this defining image of the crackdown that an unidentified man in a white shirt facing off against a column of tanks. Brave lone act of defiance. His name and fate remain a mystery. No official death toll was ever released by the Chinese government, but human rights groups estimate it was in the hundreds, if not thousands. CNN’s Will Ripley has done extensive reporting in China tonight. He joins us from Taipei, Taiwan. So can you just remind people of what this anniversary represents?

Ripley replied, “June 4th, 1989. 35 years ago. We don’t know, as you said, how many people were massacred in Tiananmen Square. These were young. Some of the best and brightest minds in China who were out protesting for democracy, protesting for an end to government corruption. And their calls were brutally suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army. The day after this video and that iconic photo, which has been since known as Tank Man.”

“We don’t know the name of this man, who looks like he was just walking to work and stood in front of a column of tanks. They were shooting, bullets above his head, trying to get him to get out of the way. Even getting these photos to the rest of the world was was quite an ordeal. Because at that time, Beijing, was shutting down all live transmission. CNN had to hide its video tapes in the U.S. embassy before a tourist smuggled them in a suitcase and flew them to Hong Kong, which at that time was free to report about this. It’s a very different situation today. And the photo, the most famous one, there were about six of them, but the most famous was Jeff Weiner of the AP. They had to smuggle, the film and a canister hidden in the photographer’s shoe just to get these images to the world. But they, remain and not only iconic to this day, but I think for a lot of people, a symbol of, the individual standing up to the power of the state,” Ripley concluded.

Cooper added, “And we’re showing you the color bars that that, and it’s happening in China right now. We’re being censored as soon as we mentioned, as I said in the teaser before the commercial break, that we’re going to be talking about Tiananmen Square. These color bars went up and the signal is now being blocked.”

“So Tiananmen vigils have also obviously been banned in China. What’s security been like there?” he followed up.

“Well, obviously there’s always heavy security at Tiananmen Square. There’s heavy security in Hong Kong at Victoria Park, where up until 2020, there were protests every year, sometimes with 150,000 people. This year they arrested four people — two men, two women, ages 23 to 69. That’s basically all that’s left of any commemoration of Tiananmen Square in Hong Kong. And yeah, as you see from the color bars, China has essentially tried to erase this moment, this date, June 4th, 1989, from its history. I have friends who grew up in China, who are highly educated people, but they didn’t even know about the Tiananmen Square massacre until they moved out of the country and learned about it on the free internet. Of course, China’s internet is heavily censored,” Ripley reported.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.