Reports indicate that Chinese police have detained a woman from Shanghai after she filmed herself on Wednesday splashing paint on a photo of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The woman, identified as Dong Yaoqiong, livestreamed herself splashing paint on a Chinese Communist Party propaganda poster and expressing opposition to “authoritarian tyranny.”
“I am in the Lujiazui district of Shanghai right now, and that’s the Haihang building just behind me,” Dong says in the video, which was shot on Wednesday morning ahead of the commuter rush-hour. “It’s pretty early, and I think everyone is still on their way to work.”
“There is a portrait of Xi Jinping behind me,” she continued. “What I want to say is that I am using my real name to oppose Xi Jinping’s tyranny and dictatorship, and the oppressive brain control perpetrated on me by the Chinese Communist Party.”
On her Twitter account, Dong posted photos of men in uniform who appeared outside her door and appeared to prepare to arrest her.
“Right now there are a group of people wearing uniforms outside my door,” she wrote. “I’ll go out after I change my clothes. I did not commit a crime. The people and groups that hurt me are the ones who are guilty.”
Her account has since been deleted. The photos she posted were later republished by Hua Yong, a Beijing artist who gained coverage for his documenting mass evictions of rural migrants.
“Please everyone pay attention, don’t let her vanish without a trace – defend the constitution, freedom of speech is not a crime,” he wrote.
According to the Hong Kong Free Press, Chinese activists and Twitter users responded to her unknown whereabouts “with a flurry of tweets expressing support and concern for her.”
Human rights activist Jia Pin explained to Radio Free Asia that Dong was rebelling against the uncompromising crackdown on freedom of speech and all criticism of the regime while claiming that she may have been a target for the government’s drug-based “brain control” program.
“In the video, this woman says that she has been targeted with particular tactics by the stability maintenance system. She called it persecution by brain control,” Jia explained. “This is extremely likely to be true; the stability maintenance system does like to employ such methods.”
“These methods of brain control make people extremely anxious and cause insomnia, as well as unable to control their own thoughts. I think that’s the chief reason why this woman splashed ink [on the poster],” he continued. “To put it more bluntly, the responsibility doesn’t rest with her; it rests with the state security police at a local level, and the stability maintenance people.”
To help consolidate Xi Jinping’s power, Chinese authorities have moved in recent years to impose a system of “stability maintenance” to help root out all government dissent. The policy involves strict monitoring of anti-government activists, social media activity, media and artistic express completely control over all educational institutions.
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