Beijing (AFP) - Former Chinese Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang — who was ousted after opposing the use of force to quell 1989 democracy protests — was buried on Friday more than a decade after his death, said his family.

Zhao, who is a revered figure among Chinese human rights defenders, is still a sensitive topic in the country, where commemorations of his death are held under tight surveillance or prevented altogether.

There was no mention of his burial ceremony on state media, and searching for his name on social media returned no results.

It also took 14 years for his family to lay Zhao to rest after his death on January 17, 2005 at the age of 85.

“Today, we have found solace,” Wang Zhihua, Zhao’s son-in-law, told AFP over the phone.

“After so many years and our persistence, we truly have found solace,” he said, declining to elaborate on why it took so long to arrange the burial of his father-in-law’s ashes.

The burial ceremony for Zhao and his wife, Liang Boqi, took place Friday afternoon at a Beijing cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

Photos of the two were placed on stands by a simple gray headstone, where their names were carved and coloured in black ink, according to photos published by the South China Morning Post and the BBC.

Zhao was not laid to rest at the Baobashan Cemetery for revolutionary heroes and Communist Party luminaries.

“Today it was really just family and relatives,” Wang said, estimating that about 20 people or fewer attended the ceremony, though others joined later.

Zhao’s opposition to use deadly military force to crack down on democracy protests on Tiananmen Square came at a high cost — the former premier and Communist Party general secretary was sacked and forced to lived under house arrest for 16 years until his death.

Besides opposing Deng Xiaoping’s imposition of martial law in 1989, when hundreds of unarmed civilians — by some estimates, more than 1,000 — were killed on June 4, Zhao was respected for carrying out economic reforms in the 1980s that created opportunities for many people.

But despite his contributions to the economy, Zhao was not given a proper funeral as is generally afforded former leaders, and instead has been continually blamed for siding with the students.