Sun Wenguang said five men attacked him in front of huge crowds of people Saturday at a cemetery in China's eastern Shandong province to stop him from honouring Zhao and other people persecuted by the nation's communist rulers.

"I still can't move now. I'm just lying in bed. What they did was audacious and unprincipled. Very savage. Especially as they did it to me before thousands of people," Sun told AFP from a hospital in Shandong's Jinan city.

"They wanted to punish me and let people know that Zhao Ziyang is not allowed to be memorialised."

Sun said he sustained three broken ribs and injuries to his hands and legs.

Saturday's attack came two months before the 20th anniversary of the Chinese military's crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

Those demonstrations resulted in Zhao's ouster as Communist Party chief after he was seen as too soft on the protesters.

Sun, a retired physics professor, spent a total of more than a decade in prison at various times from the 1960s to the 1980s for criticising communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, and has remained an outspoken political voice in China.

He was attacked just after arriving at the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery in Jinan.

He had gone there for Qing Ming, or the tomb-sweeping festival, when the nation mourns its dead.

"Five minutes after I went in, five strong men suddenly appeared. They punched and kicked me until I fell to the ground and could not move any more. I'm 75 years old, you know," he said.

Sun said he had performed the act annually for years without incident, but was warned not to do so this year by police and officials at Shandong University, where he used to teach.

The warnings and the attack on Sun appeared to indicate growing official unease ahead of June 4, the 20th anniversary of the army assault on student and other protesters at Tiananmen Square.

Hundreds and possibly thousands of people died in the crackdown and the incident is still a taboo subject.

Chinese dissidents revere Zhao, also a former premier, for opposing the use of force to quell the Tiananmen demonstrations and for pushing economic reforms.

Zhao died in 2005 under house arrest and was denied the sort of funeral generally accorded former leaders.

There are numerous reports each year of authorities blocking his supporters from attempting to right this wrong with private observances.

Sun said he was followed to the cemetery by police, who disappeared during his assault, only to reappear afterwards to call for an ambulance.

The New York-based group Human Rights in China issued a statement condemning the attack.

"This deplorable act, committed in broad daylight and in clear view of the police... calls into serious question officials' professed commitment to building a society that puts people first," said the statement by executive director Sharon Hom.

China regularly claims to be a country ruled by law.

But there are numerous reports in China each year of thugs, apparently working for local officials or police, attacking or intimidating people to prevent them from engaging in politically sensitive activities.

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