Beijing ? Chinese authorities have paid “hardship” compensation to the mother of a 15-year-old boy beaten to death by police during the government crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989, according to an activist.

Although the payment apparently was the first of its kind, it did not appear to signal that the Chinese government was considering compensation for the hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people killed when military police crushed a swell of protests that summer, including in Tiananmen Square.

China says the government response to the protests – since officially classified as a counterrevolutionary riot – was justified because it laid the basis for the country’s rapid economic development during the past 17 years.