April 24, 2013
Anni’s desk is not in the classroom, but in front of her school lawn
Zhang Anni, daughter of Chinese activist Zhang Lin, was detained by police at her elementary school. Photo: NTDonChina via YouTube.
Ten-year-old Anni looks mature for her age. She is used to the uniformed police, who often come to search her home. Sometimes they took her father away, but he usually returned home after a short time. However, a recent incident on February 27 did frighten her. When school ended in the afternoon, the fourth grader was going home, and suddenly four sturdy men blocked her way. They dragged her and stuffed her into a car, then brought her to the Hubo police station in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui. Anni was detained alone in one room for the rest of the day, and did not know that her father, Zhang Lin, was also detained on the third floor of the same building. Late in the evening, Anni was finally picked up by her father.
Little Anni lives with her father and elderly sister. Their mother could not bear the constant harassment and disturbance from the police. Because of how much she suffered under the government’s persecution complex, she deserted her children and dissident-husband.
Little Anni’s father, Zhang Lin, graduated from the department of Nuclear physics in Qinghua University, yet his passion was concentrated on politics.
He resigned his job at the government office and wandered in different provinces to promote democratic ideas. Zhang Lin was deeply involved in the 89 Democratic Protest Movement, and consequently, he was thrown into prison for two years, After his release, he dedicated himself to the “protection of the rights of the workers Union” and was sentenced to three years of “re-education through labor.”
Zhang Lin went to the United States in 1997 for a year, but when he came back to China, he was sentenced once again to three years “re-education through labor.” However, all the years in prison did not defeat him: He has tried to live like a common citizen; Lin got married and had children. Meanwhile, he has continued to fight for a better China. In 2005 he was again sentenced to an additional five years in prison because of his participation in the commemoration to the disempowered Premier Zhao Ziyang.
Zhang Lin has recorded his unusual youth and adulthood as well as his rich prison experiences in the 2005 autobiography Beicang de linghun (Sorrowful Soul). The book attracted a lot of attention from critics and earned him the Independent Chinese PEN Center award in 2007.