Chinese authorities have forced a number of dissidents and rights activists to leave town and barred them from talking to the press ahead of the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on Friday.

Dissident Zha Jianguo was told by public security officers that he has to leave Beijing for June 4, “I can’t stay here in Beijing over the next few days, just like every year on June 4,” Zha told Radio Free Asia. “I will have to leave town for the CCP centenary on July 1 as well.”

Writer Tan Zuoren, who was sentenced to five years in jail for investigating the collapse of school buildings that killed thousands of children during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, was warned against accepting overseas media interviews.

Tan said he was forced to go for “vacation” for three days last year, but no arrangement has been made thus far for this year. “I have got used to it. And I can’t speak out or accept any media interviews in the days around June 4,” he added.

Beijing-based dissident Ji Feng, who took part in the 1989 democracy movement, said a number of police officers from his hometown in Guizhou province showed up and coerced him into leaving the capital.

The three officers, including a secretary of the political legal affairs committee of Tongzi county, a captain in the state security police and a former state security police captain, talked about where Ji was going and said they had to leave by Tuesday morning.

Yang Shaozheng, an economics professor expelled from Guizhou University for criticizing the CCP, has likely been taken away for “forced vacation,” his friends said, as they were unable to contact him since May 18.

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