ABSTRACT
On 4 June 1989, many of China’s now well-known human rights defenders were attending high schools in places all over China.2 Only a few had already graduated from university,3 and at least one of these was on Tian’anmen Square with other protesting students.4 Hu Jia, only 15 years old, was in the streets near his parents’ home in central Beijing, helping other citizens to make roadblocks of overturned buses to stop the tanks from rolling into the city, and hearing gunshots whizz through the air.5 Chen Guangcheng, aged 18, had only just been allowed to enroll in a newly opened elementary school for the blind in Linyi in Shandong province.6
Gao Zhisheng, 23, was probably making a living as a street vendor in rural Shaanxi province; he was a poor, uneducated, recently demobilized soldier.7
