HAYLEY COVER’S article (Tiananmen Square, June 5) is a timely reminder of the role played by the young in vicious dictatorships.

In Tiananmen Square, when the students walked, unarmed, towards the tanks, they were crushed.

In the Polytechnic University, in Athens, during the Colonel’s military dictatorship, students staged a mass occupation of the building in protest at the overthrow of democracy.

My friends, living in nearby streets, told me later how, during the night, they heard machine gun fire and screams, and then the rumble of tanks entering the campus.

While many youngsters lay dead, or dying, other students walked, unarmed, towards the tanks and were crushed.

In the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile, during the murderous regime of Pinochet, students were lining up with placards called for “Justicia”. My daughter (a student in England) and I watched the students file out and begin their silent march.

Suddenly, from nowhere, came the rumble of tanks and the indiscriminate firing of tear gas bombs and water cannon jets.

As the students walked, unarmed, towards the tanks, they were beaten up by armed police and loaded into vans.

A week later, we joined families visiting them in prison and heard with horror of the tortures the students had suffered.

At different times and under different political repression, it was the brightest and best of the young who first had the courage to openly oppose evil and suffer the reprisals.

Oxford students have mercifully been spared the test, but, as Hayley Cover wrote: “We must remember what they did.”

DOROTHY BIRTLES, Holley Crescent, Headington, Oxford