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Soldier who spoke on Tiananmen detained: rights group

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Fri Mar 20, 8:34 am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – A former Chinese soldier who published a letter on the Internet calling for a reassessment of the Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989 has been detained by police, a rights group said on Friday.

Zhang Shijun's letter issued earlier this month urged Chinese president Hu Jintao to "use his wisdom" to officially reassess the "June Fourth tragedy, the event in China's recent history that causes bitter weeping and choking back tears."

He was taken away by police from his home in Tengzhou, Shandong province, around 2 a.m. on Friday, the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch group said.

A woman who identified herself as his wife said on Friday that he was not at home, but denied he had run into trouble.

June 4 will mark 20 years since the military crushed student-led pro-democracy protests around Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds. The Communist Party called the protests a counter-revolutionary incident, and has not changed that verdict.

Zhang entered the army at age 16. His unit moved to Beijing on April 20, 1989, as student protesters occupied Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing.

Zhang's letter said what he saw on the night of June 3 into the morning of June 4 troubled him so much he requested an early discharge from the army.

He returned to Tengzhou but was arrested in 1992 and sentenced to three years of "re-education through labor" for "anti-party" and "anti-socialism" crimes.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Jerry Norton)