2008 Beijing Games Human Rights News

Chen Dashan is a grieving father who cannot get to the bottom of his 20-year-old daughter’s mysterious death while she was in the army. A military band conductor, she died suddenly and inexplicably after a concert in 2006. The last time he saw her, she was a lifeless body in the back of an ambulance. Her superiors claimed she was the victim of a heart attack but the authorities never paid the required compensation to her family. Her father suspects a cover-up and their indifference has only compounded his grief.

This was why Chen filed several requests for permission to demonstrate during the Olympic Games in the parks that the Chinese authorities have supposedly earmarked for public protests. “The pressure on the government is very strong, with the games, but it will be impossible afterwards,” he told a Wall Street Journal reporter. But his requests were all denied. So last Sunday, 10 August, he went to Tiananmen Square to distribute leaflets explaining his campaign on behalf of his daughter.

AFP Video has done a report on the difficulties of demonstrating in Beijing, and it shows this ordinary, 53-year-old father from northern China confronting an icy police officer. After distributing a few leaflets, Chen was led away. Since then, he has not been answering his telephone.