On Mother’s Day, Badiucao honors the Tiananmen Mothers, a loose-knit group of parents who lost children in the military crackdown on protests in Beijing on June 4, 1989. In Badiucao’s image, one of the Tiananmen Mothers uses a rose to smash the tank that is facing off with the “Tank Man.”
Tiananmen Mothers, by Badiucao for CDT:
For years, the “Tiananmen Mothers” group has called on the Chinese government for a full accounting of the violence on the night on June 3-4 and for the right to mourn their children in public—demands that have gone unanswered. In 2013, 76-year-old Ding Zilin, the founder of the group whose 17-year-old son was shot in the back by soldiers, told NPR’s Louisa Lim, “It’s possible that before I leave this world, I won’t see justice.” Ding’s husband, Jiang Peikun, passed away last September.
This year marks the 27th anniversary of the protests and subsequent crackdown. Read more via CDT, including a compilation of original news reports from 1989.
