Asia-Pacific News

Lone protestor hurls ink at Mao portrait in Beijing

Apr 8, 2010, 13:52 GMT

Beijing - A lone protestor has hurled ink at a portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong on Beijing's Tiananmen gate, police said on Thursday.

The protestor threw the ink in a plastic bottle which hit a wall near the portrait on April 5, an official from the Beijing Public Security Bureau told the German Press Agency dpa.

Police overpowered and detained the unidentified man, who was a petitioner bringing his grievances to the Chinese capital, the official said.

Several other attacks on the giant portrait have been reported since an iconic act of defiance during pro-democracy protests in nearby Tiananmen Square in 1989, when three men pelted the portrait with paint-filled eggshells.

Dissident Yu Dongyue was released in early 2006 after he spent nearly 17 years in prison for paint-bombing the portrait.

The other two convicted of the attack were released early after they each spent about 10 years in prison. Yu apparently served his full sentence because he refused to confess to any crime.

A new picture is reportedly painted every year and replaces the old version of the Mao portrait before October 1, China's National Day. Used portraits are apparently kept in case of more attacks.

National Day marks the anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, proclaimed by Mao from Tiananmen Gate.