It was reported in the last week that the Chinese dissident, Fang Lizhi had died in America at the age of 76. Lizhi left his homeland of China for America in 1990 over fears that he would be targeted by the Chinese authorities for his part in orchestrating civil protests.
Fang Lizhi famously played a major part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing. Lizhi was said to have hosted pro-reform meetings at his residence, written to the government on several occasions urging the release of pro-reform activists and actively engaging in pro-reform activities and in the process risking his life and that of his family.
The man who defined human rights as “fundamental privileges that people have from birth, such as the right to think and be educated, the right to marry and so on” may be gone, but his legacy of risking it all for what is right will never be extinguished.
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