Tiananmen Mothers

The Tiananmen Mothers is a group of Chinese democracy activists promoting a change in the government's position over the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. It is led by Ding Zilin, a retired university professor whose teenage son was shot and killed by government troops during the protests.

The group – comprising the parents, friends and relatives of victims of the massacre – formed in September 1989 when Ding, along with her husband Jiang Peikun, met another mother, Zhang Xianling, whose 19-year-old son was also killed on June 4, 1989. As well as campaigning, the group also disseminates information about the events to the public, including through the internet. Currently, the group consists of relatives of 125 individuals killed during the protests. For her efforts, Ding has been hailed as an "advocate for the dead".

Prior to June 1989, Ding Zilin was a Philosophy professor at the People's University and a member of the Communist Party of China. On June 3, 1989, her 17-year-old son Jiang Jielian was killed on his way to Tiananmen Square. Ding launched a one-woman campaign to establish what had happened to her son and those who were killed that night. The government had put her under surveillance and Ding experienced harassment as she met with other victims families. Describing the organisation, Ding announced that the group were "a common group of citizens brought together by a shared fate and suffering".

Despite the expansion of the group, many Chinese intellectuals had kept away from the movement, as they did with the Democracy Wall movement in the late 1970s. One exception was Wu Zuguang, who advocated a reversal of the governments position at a meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 1997, and he did not suffer any repercussions for his comments because of his age. Other members of the group included prominent student Jiang Qisheng, a graduate of the Beijing Institute of Aeronautics who became head of the Beijing Student Autonomous Federation which acted in conjunction with other universities and formed part of a delegation that met with Premier Li Peng to try and resolve the Tiananmen protests peacefully. He was jailed for 18 months and upon his release in February 1991, was denied regular employment.

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