An activist threw ink on an image of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Now she's disappeared.


A young Chinese activist named Dong Yaoqiong filmed herself throwing ink on a poster of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who in March obtained legal authority to stay in office indefinitely, and posted the video online. "I oppose Xi Jinping and his authoritarian dictatorship," she said. "Let's see how he's gonna deal with me."
In a later post on Twitter, Dong shared a photo that appeared to show police waiting outside her apartment. "Right now there are a group of people wearing uniforms outside my door. I'll go out after I change my clothes," she wrote. "I did not commit a crime. The people and groups that hurt me are the ones who are guilty." Since then, her Twitter account has been deleted; her video has been taken offline; and she has disappeared.
In response, other activists have reposted the video and protested her disappearance by splashing ink on other public images of Xi, posting photos using her hashtag, #InkSplash. Some unverified reports suggest Dong has been taken to Beijing from Shanghai, the site of her original protest.
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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