Wang Dan on Tiananmen in 1989: I’m proud
— “‘We lost a lot but we gained a lot too… I’m proud every time I think about it,’ Wang told AFP in an interview from Taiwan.”
— “Twenty years on he has no regrets over the tumultuous period that transformed him from a college student to a counter-revolutionary.”
— “Along with other student leaders like Chai Ling and Wu’er Kaixi, Wang led six weeks of peaceful protests from makeshift tents on Tiananmen Square, turning the movement into the biggest threat ever to Communist Party rule.”
— “‘We did not make sufficient preparation at the time,’ Wang said of his eventual capture and nearly seven years of imprisonment.”
— “A photo of Wang in Tiananmen Square epitomises youth in revolt. Microphone in hand, long floppy hair brushed away from big, round glasses, Wang thoughtfully harangues the crowd with a tense look on his face.”
— “At the time he was 20 years old.”
— “‘We are going to take back the powers of democracy and freedom from the hands of that gang of old men who have grabbed those powers away from us,’ Wang said in his first speech at the end of April 1989.”