The Boston Long Bow Group, Chai Ling and “The Gate of Heavenly Peace”: Geremie R. Barmé responds to "China Beat"

Authors

Date of this Version

4-26-2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

April 26, 2009 in the China Beat http://www.thechinabeat.org/

Comments

Copyright April 26, 2009. Used by permission.

Abstract

In several previous posts, we’ve directed our readers to the prize-winning film “The Gate of Heavenly Peace” and the excellent accompanying website, which provides a wealth of information for those seeking to understand the complex events of 1989. The film has generated controversy from the start, but we’ve learned that there’s now a new development, a lawsuit directed against the film-makers. To learn more about the situation, we’ve turned to Geremie Barmé, whose role in the film and the website have been described before. Here are the questions we’ve put to him and his answers:

CB: What exactly is the lawsuit about?

GRB: In May 2007, Jenzabar, Inc., its CEO Robert Maginn, Jr., and its President Chai Ling, filed suit in Boston against the Long Bow Group, claiming defamation and trademark infringement.

On the first page of their complaint, Chai Ling, Maginn, and Jenzabar claimed that Long Bow was, “Motivated by ill-will, their sympathy for officials in the Communist government of China, and a desire to discredit Chai, a former student leader in the pro-democracy movement in China’s Tiananmen Square…”