Ding Zilin

Ding Zilin (born December 20, 1936, or January 1, 1939 ) is a retired professor of philosophy and the leader of the political activist group Tiananmen Mothers.

Ding, born in Shanghai on December 20, 1936, was professor of philosophy at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

Her husband, Jiang Peikun, was head of the Aesthetics Institute at the university.

Ding's seventeen-year-old son, Jiang Jielian, was one of the first to be killed when the People's Liberation Army crushed the Tiananmen Square protests.

He left the family home in defiance of the curfew.

Accounts vary of what happened next.

Ding is the mother of Jiang Jielian, one of the first student protestors killed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and ensuing crackdown.

Eyewitnesses had told her that her son was shot and was left to bleed to death on the night of June 3, 1989.

Ding says he was shot through the heart by riot police on the way to Tiananmen Square.

He was rushed to the Beijing Children's Hospital, where he was pronounced "Dead on arrival".

Following her son's death, Ding said she attempted suicide six times.

In August 1989, she met another bereaved mother, and found a commonality within the self-help group, which continued growing.

She formed a network of some 150 other families who had lost sons and daughters during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and this group became known as "Tiananmen Mothers".

Ever since that day, she has been asking the government to apologize for the deaths.

She and some others have faced imprisonment, house-arrest, phone-tapping and constant surveillance.

She was allegedly told by a senior official that a review of the June 4, 1989, crackdown was "out of the question".

She has been collecting the names of those who were shot dead by the People's Liberation Army in Beijing around June 4, 1989.

Since her son's death in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Ding Zilin has been fighting for justice for the victims.

Her activism has drawn international attention and association with recognizable human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and HRIC (Human Rights in China).

New York based human rights watchdog HRIC has been labelled by the Chinese government as a hostile organization.

Because of Ding Zilin's efforts, Amnesty International has a political campaign to put pressure on the Chinese government to acknowledge and apologize for the deaths of so many citizens.

In 1991, after an interview she gave to ABC News, the government prevented her and her husband from carrying out their work or research, and were barred from publishing domestically.

Party membership was revoked.

In addition, she was detained for more than 40 days.

She was forced into early retirement.

Since her release, she was under close supervision by the authorities.

Harassment continued when on September 9, 1994, she was arrested in front of the university and held by police for two hours, for having had published an article in the foreign media "hurtful to the people".

Again in 1995, she and her husband were arrested in Wuxi on August 18 and incarcerated until September 30, allegedly on "economic matters", and were denied visitors.

In 1996 Ding's husband was forced to retire early.

Since February 28, 2000, she has been under 24-hour surveillance by the authorities.

In 2004, she and other Tiananmen Mothers were put under house arrest shortly before the 15th anniversary of the massacre to prevent them from holding any public memorial or protest.

She and her husband have been under house arrest as of May 24, 2004.

In 2006, Time magazine selected her as one of the "60 Asian heroes".

At the end of June 2006, Ding was able to confirm 186 deaths through her own efforts despite repeated harassment by the authorities.

However, upon close inspection of the cause of deaths, not all individuals on Ding's list died directly at the hands of the army.

For example, at least one of the individuals on the list had committed suicide after the uprising had been squashed.

On February 8, 2007, she won the Vasyl Stus "Freedom-to-Write" Award for her book Looking for the June 4 victims.

Amnesty applauded the Chinese government in June 2007 for allowing Ding Zilin, her husband and two other dead citizens’ kin to light candles west of Tiananmen Square.

She was ordered to leave Beijing for a forced vacation during the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Following the announcement that Liu Xiaobo had won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, and his dedication of his prize to those who died in 1989, dissident groups reported on October 18 she and her husband may have been taken into custody by police, and have not been seen or heard from for four days; their phones have been cut off.