Two men who spent years in jail for daring to throw paint at a portrait of Chairman Mao have been granted political asylum in the United States.
Yu Dongyue, a former journalist and art critic, and his friend Yu Zhijian, a former teacher, have fled China and made their way to Thailand, Radio Free Asia reported. US Embassy officials in Bangkok declined to comment.
The pair, along with Yu Dongyue’s sister and Yu Zhijian’s wife, had travelled secretly to Thailand, probably through Laos along a route that is well trodden by people trying to flee China.
Yu Dongyue’s brother said that he had gone abroad with his sister in the hope of better treatment for the mental illness he developed while in jail. “We have taken him to the hospital many times but he has not recovered,” his brother said. “The situation is still the same . . . We don’t think he can recover here.”
He was deliberately vague about his brother’s whereabouts but confirmed that he had long since left home. “My parents are missing him very much since he left. But if it is good for his health, that is OK.”
The news of their flight emerged almost exactly 20 years after the two men, childhood friends, and a bus driver, Lu Decheng, hurled eggshells filled with paint at the portrait of Chairman Mao that gazes out from the Gate of Heavenly Peace.
One of the most potent symbols of Communist Party rule, it has hung, smiling faintly, from the Gate since Mao declared the founding of the People’s Republic from its terrace in 1949.
On May 23, 1989, the three men wanted to make a mark amid the excitement of the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. They had travelled from their home province of Hunan, in central China, the region where Mao himself was born.
They came up with the idea of making a dramatic gesture and bought 30 eggs from a street food stall, filling the shells with paint.
Mr Lu, who found asylum in Canada three years ago, has said that Yu Zhijian prevented people from walking through the gate under the portrait while he and Yu Dongyue hurled the eggs at Mao’s 30ft face.
They were quickly seized by student demonstrators who were anxious to distance themselves from the act. After some debate, it was decided to hand the trio over to the police.
Two months later Yu Dongyue was convicted of sabotage and counter-revolutionary propaganda and sentenced to 20 years. Mr Lu got 16 years and Yu Zhijian received a life sentence. The latter two were released in 1998 but prison officials refused requests to free Yu Dongyue on medical parole, saying that he had never admitted doing anything wrong.
However, his sentence was reduced by two years in 2000 and by another 15 months in 2003. He served the longest-known political sentence after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
His treatment in prison, including two years in solitary confinement as well as subjection to electric shocks and brutal beatings, took a toll on Yu Dongyue’s mental health.
At the time of his release, his mother said that her son’s mental state was clearly extremely fragile when she had visited him in jail. “He looked at me through the glass but didn’t recognise me. He pushed the phone aside and wouldn’t talk to me and just mumbled in some foreign language. He never called me ‘Ma’.”
Source:The times
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