Li Xuewen, an essayist and playwright in Beijing, has been fired from his job as a book editor in what he said was retribution for attending a private event in May marking the 25th anniversary of the military suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests. Mr. Li, 37, a senior editor at the state-owned Lijiang Publishing House, said he was abruptly let go on Tuesday. In a telephone interview Tuesday evening, Mr. Li said his boss had come under pressure from security agents in the two months since a group of intellectuals and rights advocates gathered at an apartment in Beijing to discuss the 1989 crackdown, in which hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians were killed. A photograph of the seminar's participants was posted on the Internet, drawing the attention of the authorities at a time when the Chinese government was anxious to tamp down any commemoration or public discussion of the politically sensitive anniversary. In the days following the May 3 meeting, the police detained five of the attendees. One of them, Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent rights lawyer, was subsequently charged with "picking quarrels and provoking troubles," as well as with illegally gathering personal information. His niece Qu Zhenhong, a fellow lawyer, also remains in police custody, but the others have since been released. Mr. Li said he underwent several police interrogations, including one that lasted six hours. But he said in the interview that he was somewhat surprised by his dismissal, because a high-ranking police official in Beijing had assured him that he would be left unscathed if he declined interviews with foreign news outlets. He attributed his dismissal to security agents from Guangxi, the region in southern China where Lijiang Publishing House is based. "I held up my end of the bargain by refusing to talk to reporters, and this is what I get," he said. Mr. Li's former boss at the publishing house could not immediately be reached for comment. The authorities, Mr. Li said, had also pressured his landlord to evict him, but he was allowed to remain in his home after he followed police suggestions that he leave Beijing during the approach to the June 4 anniversary and to "adjust" the tenor of social media postings that criticized the government. "They told me I should give constructive advice to the government, not criticism," he said. There were other, somewhat mysterious occurrences that he interpreted as repercussions for joining the seminar. On two occasions recently, he said, someone had squirted a gluelike substance into the lock of his front door, rendering the mechanism inoperable. Although Mr. Li said he cut back on the number of critical postings to Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog, he let his followers know that Wednesday night last week he had joined with friends to stand outside a Beijing police station where the writer Murong Xuecun was being interrogated. "That probably infuriated them," he said of the security agents on his case. Mr. Li said he had no interest in returning to the publishing industry and would devote himself to writing plays. "Until the day press freedom arrives in China, I'll never work in publishing again," he said.