cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/42803448
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No one had heard from Dong Yaoqiong, a young Chinese woman, since January 2021. That was when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forcibly locked her up in a psychiatric hospital for the third time.
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To this day, the CCP still uses psychiatric detention on their perceived enemies – petitioners fighting injustice in their villages, activists speaking out for freedom and rights. It is one of the most chilling ways the CCP uses to disappear critics – forced hospitalization in a mental facility without medical justification. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of victims.
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In the summer of 2018, Dong Yaoqiong splashed ink on a poster of Xi Jinping in Shanghai, sparking a tragic chain of events that have left at least two people dead and another disappeared, presumed dead.
In her memory, the rights group Safeguard Defenders published an open letter …
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You gained notoriety more than seven years ago when you splashed black ink on a poster of Xi Jinping in Shanghai, streaming it for all the world to see on 4 July 2018. At a time when the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] does not suffer any criticism, this was a truly courageous act. We believe you accomplished something which many longed in their hearts to do yet did not dare.
Overnight, you became famous. Did you know the world started calling you “ink girl” after that?
The video of that morning still exists, although its quality is grainy. We see a young woman, with long dark hair, and wearing a yellow t-shirt with the words “New York, New York” printed on the front. You speak firmly into the camera. You tell us it’s around 6.40 in the morning, then swing the lens round to show us a high-rise building in the background – it’s the HNA tower in Shanghai. Then you stand in front of a wall with a large Xi Jinping poster and your tone becomes more serious.
“I oppose Xi Jinping’s dictatorship, autocracy and tyranny. I oppose the Chinese Communist Party’s brain-control oppression against me!”
And then you walk over to the wall and from what looks like a red plastic jug you splash black ink over Xi’s face, while saying: “I hate him to the bone.”
That night police came to your home and disappeared you into psychiatric detention.
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