Portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong / paint-filled eggs, burning object

(In May 1989, at the height of ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, three men - Yu Dongyue (a journalist), Yu Zhijian (a schoolteacher), and Lu Decheng (a truck mechanic) - threw eggs (which had been emptied and refilled with red, blue and yellow paint) at the large painted portrait of Mao Zedong displayed prominently near Tiananmen Square. According to news reports, other demonstrators seized the three men and turned them over to police.

The damage to the painting was able to be repaired. The three men were sentenced to life in prison; each served at least ten years before being separately released.

The painting was attacked again in May 2007, when a 35-year-old unemployed man from Xinjiang hurled a burning object at the portrait and damaged it. The man was arrested; the painting was restored.)