(California) Despite the scorching heat on June 4, countless human rights activists flocked to Liberty Sculpture Park in the Mojave Desert. They witnessed the unveiling of the new Chained Woman sculpture and commemorated the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Tragic story
The Chained Woman sculpture tells the true and tragic story of a woman who was trafficked in Jiangsu province, China. In January 2022, a Chinese woman was discovered on social media. Reports poured in that she was repeatedly trafficked and forced to give birth to eight children. In the viral video, she was shackled and clearly a victim of all kinds of abuse and torture. When she saw someone was filming her, the chained woman groaned: “This world does not want me anymore.”
Saviors arrested
After the relevant video spread on the Internet, many Chinese people spontaneously went to Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, to visit and attempt to rescue her. The Chinese Communist Party detained and arrested everyone who tried.
4 Billion views
The topic has been read nearly 4 billion times on the Chinese social media Weibo, but nobody could rescue the chained woman. Under the government’s strong cover-up and suppression, news of the “Chained Woman” was blocked by the Chinese Communist Party.
The sculptor
Artist Mr. Chen Weiming, the founder of Liberty Sculpture Park in California, named a statue after the “Chained Woman.” He wrote a bilingual inscription in Chinese and English to “tell the world of the tragic fate and endless suffering of women in China’s so-called prosperous age!”
An unfinished mission
Mr. Chen Weiming said: “We should not only sympathize with the tragic Chained Woman who has suffered enough abuse, but continue to search for her whereabouts, and must also pay attention to the whereabouts of those conscientious people who cried out for her and disappeared such as Wuyi, and work hard to rescue them.”
Prisoners of conscience
The vivid and tragic image of the “Chained Woman” highlights all Chinese people suffering under the Communist Party’s rule. She reflects, to some extent, all those prisoners of conscience and their families who have been suppressed and forcibly disappeared by the government.
Tiananmen Square
Chen Weiming decided to reveal the statue on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The artist said that in the early hours of June 4, 1989, “the first glimmer of democracy in China has since died.” Many have despaired after the massacre of countless student leaders. According to Chen, the Chained Woman “is a direct consequence of the dictatorial rule of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Chen Guangcheng
At the opening ceremony, Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese human rights activist, was present and delivered a speech. He said that the Chained Woman, violent family planning policies, the 709 crackdown, and the kidnapping of petitioners into psychiatric hospitals acts against humanity taken by the Chinese Communist Party to protect the party’s interests.
Geng He
Geng He, the wife of well-known human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, attended the unveiling event. “Through the incident of the Chained Woman,” she said, “the world should have a more direct understanding of the distressing plight of ordinary women in China. Beneath the surface of the Communist Party’s loud proclamations about a flourishing prosperous age lies a great scheme of deceiving the public and hiding the extreme injustices.”
~Gao Zhensai, Special Correspondent of ChinaAid
