A Chinese democracy organization has begun a drive to raise funds for a statue of Li Wangyang, the democracy activist whose suspicious death triggered widespread public outrage recently.
Tang Baiqiao, president of the New York-based Democracy Academy of China, announced in a press release their decision to raise funds from the public to build a statue of Li, “to carry forward his unbending spirit.”
The statue will be built in the United States and displayed in Hong Kong, and possibly even be moved to Li Wangyang’s hometown Shaoyang or Tiananmen Square “when China acquires the freedom she so deserves,” the press release said.
Li was jailed by the Chinese regime for over two decades after he attempted to establish an independent labor union during the 1989 democracy movement. He was released in May 2011, blind, crippled, and nearly deaf from the torture he suffered while in prison.
On June 6, Li was found dead in an apparent suicide at the hospital where he was being treated for diabetes and heart disease. The authorities hastily took his body away and cremated it without his family’s approval.
Li’s family members have stated that he was crippled and too weak to have hung himself in the manner alleged by authorities. Just days before, he had even proclaimed in a television interview that he would never regret promoting democracy in China, “even if I were beheaded.”
His death caused widespread public outrage. Four days after his death, over 25,000 people took to the streets in Hong Kong to protest his death and demand a formal investigation from the authorities.
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