June 2009

Dissidents who have protested against China’s human rights record had a unique opportunity to be on Chinese soil to take part in the demonstrations against the Beijing crackdown in 1989. They are still free to enter Hong Kong; or would have been had this not been the anniversary year of the founding of the PRC or the twentieth anniversary of the massacre.
  But as we saw this month, a number of dissidents failed to gain entry to the territory. Wuerkaixi, a student demonstrator in the Tiananmen Square protests failed to get entry into Macau.
  Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot who created the Pillar of Shame sculpture that, with its torn and twisted bodies represents the bodies of the victims of the crackdown, was refused entry, while his two sons, Kaspar and Lasse were allowed in. The denial of entry prompted strong protests and demands of an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Jens Galschiot had brought two more artworks, called Fragments of a Democracy Story I and II.
  Xiang Xiaoji, another student leader of the 1989 protests was put on a flight back to New York shortly after immigration officials escorted him away.
  A surprisingly successful entrant to the territory was Xiong Yan, one of the most wanted dissidents in China. He was one of the few who met then-premier Li Peng inside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in 1989. Following two years’ detention, Xiong fled to the US with the help of Hong Kong activists, where is he presently a US Army chaplain.
  The Hong Kong Federation of Students held a hunger strike calling for a reassessment of the victims of the crackdown. Student Crystal Chow said the strike was a continuation of the movement in 1989 in Beijing. The plan was for Xiong Yan and Kaspar and Lasse Galschiot to come to meet the students, encourage their stand and speak about the democracy movement and demands for vindication of the victims.
  At Times Square, a place most people associate with shopping, the students gathered in the quiet atmosphere people generate when they work together to a common purpose. The sunny square was bright with heat through which shoppers and office workers strolled, past the students sitting quietly around the stalls decorated with exhortations demanding justice. Kaspar and Lasse Galschiot were the first to arrive. After some brief introductions, the brothers presented the students with their father’s sculpture, a work of art that the Democrats tried to install in the Legislative Council building until the Beijing loyalists squawked and forced its removal. Kaspar produced a paper and made a speech. He said that they trusted Hong Kong’s inexorable progress towards full democracy and were sure that violations of human rights which had prevented their father from entering Hong Kong would not happen again in the future. ‘I demand that the authorities explain their decision to bar our father, an act that is a clear violation of human rights.’
  Then Xiong Yan appeared. I asked him if the present regime in China would ever backpedal on its present stance of insisting that the crackdown was necessary to preserve stability. He said ‘We can force them.’
  I said the democracy movement in Hong Kong certainly not had run out of steam as had been hoped by the communist loyalists. Xiong agreed. He was sure that the democracy movement in Hong Kong would not die out, and that it was an inspiration for Chinese overseas. He said ‘Many overseas democratic movements for China have not lasted long, while others have no unity. Hong Kong people’s stance encourages many overseas Chinese.’
  A young man spoke to me, asking where I was from. ‘Are you a journalist?’ he asked.
  ‘No. I just capture moments,’ I said. He said he was from the mainland.
  He looked at the scene of the hunger strike and of Kasper and Lasse standing with the students, holding their father’s sculpture, as Xiong Yan was on one side being grilled by a reporter. ‘This crackdown did not happen,’ the young man said.
  ‘I see,’ I said.
  ‘And this - ’ he nodded with some impatience at the students and the cameras recording the peaceful demonstration there in Times Square ‘would not be allowed in China.’
  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘They don’t allow protests against things that didn’t happen? Why’s that?’
  At this point, as is usual when I have these kinds of conversations with Chinese Communist Party stalwarts, he drifted away with some irritation.


Slide show of more shots of the students' hunger strike.