MCLC: man kills self to protest son's death

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: man kills self to protest son's death
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Source: NYT (5/28/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/asia/chinese-man-kills-self-to-prot
est-sons-death-in-tiananmen.html

Chinese Man Kills Himself to Protest Son’s Death in Tiananmen Sq.
By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — A Beijing man has hanged himself to protest the government’s
refusal to account for his son’s death in a military assault on the 1989
Tiananmen Square demonstrations, a group that seeks justice for victims of
the assault said Monday.

The group, Tiananmen Mothers <http://www.tiananmenmother.org/>, stated on
its Web site that the man, Ya Weilin, had disappeared Thursday and was
found Friday afternoon hanging in a newly constructed parking garage
beneath his home.

The statement quoted family members as saying that Mr. Ya, 73, had written
a note earlier that recounted the death of his son, Ya Aiguo, and warned
that he would “fight with my death” against the government’s refusal to
hear his grievances.

“I can tell that he was in extreme despair when he made the decision,”
Ding Zilian, who heads Tiananmen Mothers, said in an interview. “His wife
has just gotten out of the hospital for rheumatoid and it must be so hard
for him to leave her.”

She added, “His wife told me Mr. Ya had been dreaming about his lost son
for a few days in a row before he left home.”

The son, Ya Aiguo, then 22, was said by his mother to have been shopping
with his girlfriend several blocks west of Tiananmen Square, on the city’s
main thoroughfare, when he was shot in the head as People’s Liberation
Army troops moved through the city toward the Tiananmen protesters.

The government has maintained that about 200 people died in the assault
the night of June 3 and 4, including many soldiers. But most estimates of
the death toll from that night’s violence range from hundreds to several
thousand.

Thousands of protesters were later arrested, and scores remain imprisoned
today, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco rights group.
But the Chinese government has said virtually nothing about the crackdown
for 23 years, and has ignored demands that the assault be independently
investigated and its victims compensated.

The Tiananmen Mothers statement said that Mr. Ya and his wife joined the
group’s periodic protests and signed annual petitions demanding that the
government address the deaths.

“Mr. and Mrs. Ya signed our yearly petitioning letter every year with
their real names, despite police intimidation,” said Ms. Ding, of
Tiananmen Mothers. “They received many threats from the police, but they
never flinched.”

Her group’s statement called his death “a new sin that has been added to
old unredressed grievances.”

It was unclear whether Mr. Ya’s suicide was linked to the 23rd anniversary
next Sunday of the Tiananmen crackdown. The government bars commemorations
and protests of the clash and frequently moves to silence Tiananmen
activists around that date.

In Hong Kong, 1,000 to 2,000 demonstrators marched on Sunday in an annual
protest against the assault, the first of several events scheduled to mark
the anniversary.

Mia Li contributed research in Beijing.