Dong Yaoqiong (Chinese: 董瑶琼; pinyin: Dǒng Yáoqióng; born 1989), also referred to as the 'Ink Girl' (Chinese: 泼墨女孩) in the media, is a Chinese woman who in July 2018 drew international attention through a video posted on her Twitter account with the handle @feefeefly. The video showed her splashing ink at a poster of Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping in Shanghai, and denouncing his rule as a "tyranny".[1] She was subsequently committed to a psychiatric hospital twice.[2]
Biography
Dong previously lived in Shanghai and was born and raised in Zhuzhou, Hunan province, People's Republic of China. Before her disappearance, she had been working as a realty agent and had been a dissident in China for a while.[3]
Ink splashing incident
Dong went incommunicado from July 4, 2018 after uniformed men visited her apartment on the same day that she streamed live video from the square of HNA Group headquarters in Shanghai. The video showed her criticizing what she described as the Chinese communist party-style Dictatorship, authoritarianism as well as brainwashing process imposed on Chinese people. She is also shown splashing ink on a poster of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, whom she called a dictator on social media.[4][5][6][7][8] In what appeared to be her last posting on Twitter before her disappearance, Dong wrote:[5]
Right now there are a group of people wearing uniforms outside my door. I’ll go out after I change my clothes. I did not commit a crime. The people and groups that hurt me are the ones who are guilty.
— feefeefly
An artist with an assumed name in Beijing complimented @feefeefly on what he saw as her brave behaviour of daring to criticize the Chinese communist party for its wrongdoings that busted out the bubble of the CCP's deification.[9]
Hospital stays and alleged second video
On September 9, 2018, the website Boxun reported that the administration of the hospital in Zhuzhou where Dong had been forcibly hospitalized was asked by officials to quietly feed Dong poison over a prolonged period of time, aiming that she would die while in hospital and never be discharged alive.[10] However, Chinese Human Rights Defenders reported on January 3, 2020 that she had been released from hospital in November 2019. Her father alleged that Dong continued to be affected by mental and physical side effects of the medication – Olanzapine – that she had received while in hospital, and suggested that she may have been deliberately exposed to these.[1] Dong spent a second period at the same hospital from May to September 2020. On November 30, 2020, she posted a video on Twitter (whose veracity could not be verified by Hong Kong Free Press as of December 2, 2020) in which she said that her assigned work at a local government office was actually surveillance in the name of work, whose scope merely included typing up documents and making phone calls. She further denounced the restriction on her movements imposed by the authorities, and that she had only been recently able to contact her father, of whose narrow escape from a mining accident she had only learned through activist Ou Biaofeng. She also said that she was on the "brink of breaking down" and that, if she were again hospitalized by the authorities for psychological treatment, she would possibly never be released again.[11][12]
In early December 2020, after retweeting the November video of Dong, Ou was placed in administrative detention for 15 days for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". He was subsequently charged with "subversion of state power" and placed in Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location, according to his wife.[13]
See also
References
- ^ a b Creery, Jennifer (2020-01-07). "'Ink girl' who defaced Xi Jinping poster released from Chinese psychiatric facility". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
- ^ Lew, Linda (August 1, 2021). "China charges 'Ink Girl' supporter with subversion as room for dissent narrows further". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on August 1, 2021.
Ou Biaofeng, 40, from Hunan province is known for his support for Dong Yaoqiong, also known as "Ink Girl", who was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric facility at least twice after sharing a video of herself splashing ink on a portrait of President Xi Jinping.
- ^ ""泼墨女孩"一天内被广泛传播 中国网民赞其勇敢" ['Ink Girl' [video] was widely disseminated in one day. Chinese netizens praise her courage."] (in Chinese). Radio Free Asia. 2018-07-05. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter|authors=(help) - ^ "Shanghai Woman Missing, Believed Detained After Inking Poster of President". Radio Free Asia. 2018-07-05. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
- ^ a b Lai, Catherine (2018-07-05). "Video: Concerns over whereabouts of Shanghai woman who splashed ink on Xi Jinping poster, as Twitter account disappears". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
- ^ Cho, Kassy; Yang, William (2018-07-06). "This Woman Threw Ink On A Photo Of China's President On A Livestream And Now She's Disappeared". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
- ^ Joyce, Kathleen (2018-07-13). "Woman disappears after she recorded herself throwing ink on poster of Chinese president, report says". Fox News. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
- ^ "Chinese woman said to be detained after tossing ink on poster with image of President Xi Jinping". The Straits Times. 2018-07-17.
- ^ "潑墨之後…習近平畫像又遭殃 這回被塗泥巴 - 大陸傳真 - 兩岸" [After the splash of ink... Xi Jinping's portrait was ravaged again. This time it was painted mud]. 世界日報 (in Chinese). 2018-07-06. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
- ^ "传已下令：不能让泼墨女孩活着走出医院" [Chuan has ordered: "can not let the girl who splashed ink out of the hospital alive."]. 博訊. 2018-09-07.
- ^ Chau, Candice (2020-12-02). "'Ink girl' who defaced Xi Jinping poster reappears, says she can't take intense surveillance". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
- ^ Yang, William (2020-12-01). "中国泼墨女现身视频 泪控北京高压监控" [Chinese 'Ink Girl' appearing live in video – fighting tears while speaking of the intense control by Beijing authorities]. Deutsche Welle (in Simplified Chinese). Retrieved 2021-05-23.
- ^ Chau, Candice (2020-12-31). "Chinese activist who retweeted 'ink girl' video charged with inciting subversion". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 2021-06-07.