Who Is the Ink Girl? What Xi Protester Says About China’s Surveillance

A woman, who had vandalized the poster of Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2018, has resurfaced once again with a new Twitter video saying she is on “the brink of breaking down” due to the extreme surveillance on her.

Dong Yaoqiong, aka "Ink Girl," had first surfaced on the digital platform when she live-streamed a video of herself splashing ink on the poster of the Chinese leader while blaming the Communist Party of “thought control." The then 28-year-old was sent to a psychiatric facility by the Chinese government. Apparently, she was released this year in January.

In the video, Yaoqiong claims to have been assigned to work at a local government office after she was released from the facility. “It’s actually surveillance in the name of work because my every move is restricted, all I do at work is typing up documents and making phone calls,” said Yaoqiong, as reported by HFKP.

She also added that she has decided to tweet again as she does not fear them anymore. “If they lock me in an institution again, it’s fine – I’ll take being locked up for life. However, I must fight for my own freedom, my freedom to work, my freedom to meet friends. I have lost all my freedoms, they’re restricted," she said.

The 30-year-old said that she had lost contact with her father until recently and that it was through an activist named Ou Biaofeng, she knew that he had escaped from a collapsed mine in Yuan Jiangshan, Hunan.

“I didn’t even know what happened to my father until Ou Biaofeng told me. That’s why I don’t want to live this life anymore,” Yaoqiong said.

Yaoqiong was able to contact her father Tuesday, said Ou to Apple Daily. Ou had tweeted on Nov. 29 that Yaoqiong’s father was one of the two miners who escaped while 13 were more trapped.

At the end of the video, Yaoqiong can be seen saying that she is ready to face the consequence of resorting to tweeting. “I won’t think about the consequences of tweeting tonight, I will take the consequences. I just want to ask what did I do wrong? Have I violated the law?” quotes HFKP.

The video was deleted from the account since the tweet. The social media platform Twitter is legally banned in China but can be accessed with the help of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).