The Mothers Of Tiananmen Square

Two Tiananmen Mothers Detained
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing

Activists who lost sons in massacre and journalist's widow held ahead of festival

Two mothers whose sons were killed in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and a woman who lost her husband to the bloody crackdown have been detained by police, a relative said yesterday. Plain-clothes state security officers took the women from their homes on Sunday and relatives had not heard from them since, said Jiang Peikun, the husband of Ding Zilin, whose teenage son was shot in the back on June 4, 1989.

"I can't figure out what has happened," Mr Jiang said. Ms Ding, who was visiting her ancestral home in Wuxi city, eastern China, was taken away on Sunday morning by one female and two male plain-clothes police officers believed to be from Wuxi's state security bureau, Mr Jiang said, citing what the family's Wuxi housekeeper told him.

"They invited Ding Zilin to eat and took her away," Mr Jiang said. "Up to now, she hasn't returned home and we don't have any news."

In the afternoon, another five people went to Ms Ding's Wuxi home, searched the residence and took away some possessions after asking the housekeeper to sign a piece of paper, he said.

In Beijing, police similarly escorted Zhang Xianling, whose teenage son was also killed in the massacre, away on Sunday, Mr Jiang said. Ms Zhang's husband also has not heard from her.

The two women are members of the Tiananmen Mothers group, comprising 124 people who lost relatives to the violent suppression 15 years ago.

Ms Ding founded the group, which had been demanding the government reassess and take responsibility for the brutal crackdown.

The third woman, Huang Jinping, lost her husband, Yang Yansheng - a journalist - to the massacre. She was also detained on Sunday, with no word on her whereabouts.

The detentions came days before the Ching Ming Festival, a traditional time for the Chinese to commemorate the dead.

Tiananmen Mothers in the past had used the grave-sweeping festival to highlight the killings.

Police in Wuxi and Beijing either declined knowledge of the incident or said their spokesmen were not on duty.

In recent years, the group has sent letters to the mainland's new leadership calling for justice.

It has also requested the government establish a formal dialogue with bereaved families, order an independent inquiry and publish an official list of those killed during the event.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators were mowed down by the mainland military as they approached Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4, 1989, after weeks of unprecedented protests.

The SCMP is THE English language newspaper in HK. I do not buy the SCMP, but I do subscribe to their online edition and refer to it often. I am copying the article here from the SCMP with no permission whatsoever, but I'm telling you where it came from out of some weird (and baseless) sense that "it's cool to copy if I tell you where it came from"...

This article was first posted: 30 August 2004

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