Press Release: for immediate release

Visual Artists Guild calls for the release of Mr. Peng

Two years ago today, on October 13, 2022, Mr. Peng Lifa, a researcher and physicist, brought attention to China's upcoming 20th National Congress when Chairman Xi was expected to be given a third 5 year term and Xi's Zero-Covid policy was in its third year.

On that day Mr. Peng hung two large banners on Beijing's Sitong Bridge. One banner read "We want food, not Covid tests. We want freedom, not lockdowns. We want respect, not lies. We want reform, not the Cultural Revolution. We want a vote, not a leader. We are citizens, not slaves". The second banner read, "Go on Strike, depose the traitorous dictator Xi Jinping."

Mr. Peng's bold actions became the inspiration for others to echo his writings and spread the photos and video of Sitong Bridge on social media even as the censors took them down. This eventually led to the White Paper protest movement throughout China a month later after a fire on November 24 in a locked high rise residential building in Urumqi which caused the death of at least 10 people.

Mr. Peng became China's 21st century Tank Man as a symbol of courage in standing up against the authoritarian rule in China. Chairman Xi Jinping's Zero-Covid policy with its lockdowns caused starvation and deaths. The young people in China who never experience the Great Famine of 1958-62 began to recognize that the right to freedom of speech is most important to their own survival.

As the Nobel Laureate in Economics Mr. Amartya Sen had pointed out in his research that there has never been a famine in a democracy because in a democratic system, with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and an opposition political party, the party in power must address any local food shortages for their citizens.

In 2023, as a symbol of dissent and his courage in speaking out even knowing that he would have to pay the price for his actions, Mr. Peng Lifa was awarded Visual Artists Guild's Champion of Freedom of Speech Award.

Mr. Peng has since disappeared but has not been charged. His wife and children have been under surveillance and restricted movements as well his other relatives.

Visual Artists Guild calls on the government of China to release Mr. Peng and stop the harassment of his family.
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