Tiananmen massacre survivors demand apology from Alibaba head Survivors of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre are demanding an apology from Jack Ma, chairman and founder of Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group, after he described sending in troops to crush demonstrations that year as "the most correct decision." A group of US-based survivors of the crackdown in Beijing have signed a petition calling on Mr Ma to apologise for his comments. Fang Zheng, a double amputee after his legs were crushed by a tank, and Zhou Fengsuo, a student leader during the protests, told the FT that supporters were planning to stage a protest outside Alibaba's US offices in Santa Clara, California, on Friday afternoon. "[These comments] have brought us great suffering," Mr Fang said. We are very angry and we demand to know what Alibaba's stance is [in this matter]. Mr Ma made the comments in an interview with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper, during which he also appeared to dismiss criticism of the government's powerful internet censorship regime. "Many foreign devils say the Chinese government controls the internet, supervises the internet," Mr Ma said, according to a transcript of the interview posted by the SCMP on July 13. If they can control the internet and still have 600m internet users, this kind of state control is really impressive. Despite the supervision, there are three or four Chinese companies among the world's 10 biggest internet companies; that's awesome. How come such a free and open place like Europe doesn't even have a single big internet company? More than 900 people, including several former leaders of the 1989 student protest movement, have signed an online petition demanding that Mr Ma apologise for his comments regarding the crackdown, in which hundreds of unarmed demonstrators and bystanders were killed by the People's Liberation Army. "For a company CEO, no matter if it's the Alibaba incident, no matter if it's splitting off Alipay, at that point, it's just like Deng Xiaoping during 6/4," Mr Ma said in the interview. In China, the term 6/4 refers to June 4, 1989 - the date that heavily armed troops shot their way into central Beijing under orders from Deng. "He was the country's highest decision maker and he demanded stability, he needed to make this kind of cruel decision," Mr Ma said, according to the SCMP transcript. This wasn't a perfect decision, but it was the most correct decision, it was the most correct decision at the time. Whatever the moment, a leader needs to make this kind of decision. Anyone can fool around and choose to not decide but that's not called management. The belief that Mr Deng's decision in 1989 was necessary is relatively common in China today, especially by people who have benefited from two decades of rapid economic growth since then. But the incident has been almost entirely scrubbed from the public record and history books by the ruling Communist party, and open discussion of the event is extremely rare in China. On Friday a spokesman for Alibaba referred to a statement Mr Ma made earlier this week: "I was trying to describe the circumstances under which I made tough decisions when I was CEO of the company. Regrettably my remarks as reported [by the SCMP] did not reflect what I told the reporter, and caused a terrible misunderstanding. Alibaba did not provide a different transcript or recording. The SCMP said on Friday that it stood by the story and a transcript of its recording. However, the journalist who conducted the original interview posted a resignation notice on Facebook on Friday evening Beijing time, saying she never intended the story to include political content. Alibaba is planning an initial public offering, most likely in Hong Kong, for later this year.