This year saw the 25th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square protests that led to the biggest crackdown by the Communists in the decades since the
Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. An anniversary that was commemorated by the
house arrest of every human rights supporter in Beijing to stop protests, even though most Chinese people never got told what happened in 1989. Thousands were killed, and many more were arrested and sent to re-education and labour camps .... but even in protest, the rich or connected have it better in a corrupt Communist society. Only Hong Kong in China still remembers
(and recent events show that they know they have to resist now) ......
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| Hong Kong Still Remembers The 'Tienanmen Square Massacres'. |
Its alleged that the only Tienanmen protester who is still in custody is a Mr Miao Deshun .... who was a lowly factory worker from Beijing, and whose only charged crime was throwing a bakery bread basket at an already burning tank in Tienanmen Square. For this he was sentenced to death, later commuted to a life sentence of labour and re-education .... kind of a
'Education through Work' punishment
(where have I heard that kinda thing before?), but many others got the same sentence.
Now you might expect that in a society in which everyone is equal, that in fact all the protesters would get the much the same sentences, but apparently those with 'connections', such as Wang Dan, one of the protest organisers, were given a mere four years in prison ....while Miao Deshun, whose part in the protest was minimal is still imprisoned, and believed to be the last man still imprisoned.
He is possibly never going to be released, even after his 25th year in incarceration this year, in fact its not even clear that he still lives, because he has apparently shown tremendous courage and refused to apologise for exercising what was nominally his constitutional rights. He has apparently gone even further, and in the face of what we can only imagine included much physical maltreatment, he:
- Refuse to admit any guilt, or sign a 'confession'.
- Refuses to carry out any assigned prison work, he just sits in his cell.
He is now in a psychiatric prison in the middle of nowhere, where he refused visits from his family, and so hasn't been seen for years ..... in this treatment he reminds me a little bit of the Israeli prisoner of conscience
Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 yrs in an Israeli prison
(mostly in solitary confinement), for telling the world that Israel had a
not so secret nuclear program and had made bombs.
