Zhao Ziyang: Purged Chinese Communist reformer is buried

The ashes of reformist Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, purged for opposing using force to suppress student protests in 1989, have been buried in Beijing.

The remains of Mr Zhao, who died in 2005, were interred along with those of his wife in a quiet ceremony.

Mr Zhao was ousted as general secretary of the Communist Party in 1989 and lived under house arrest until he died.

The crackdown authorised by officials killed hundreds, and has been excised from Chinese history books.

Negotiations about what to do with the ashes of a man the authorities have also tried to write out of history have gone on for years.

Only close family were allowed to attend the low-key burial in Tianshou Garden cemetery in Chaoping in Beijing's northern outskirts. Well-wishers and supporters were kept away.

"Today we are burying our parents with family ceremonies. The small ceremony is held in the atmosphere of family peace," Mr Zhao's daughter Wang Yannan told BBC Chinese.