1989 Mao portrait vandalism incident

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This article is part of a series about Mao Zedong
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During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the portrait of Mao Zedong at Tiananmen was defaced. At 2:00 pm, May 23, 1989, three young protesters from Liuyang, Hunan, posted banners on the wall of the Tiananmen gate's passway. The slogans on the banners read, Time to End the Five Thousand Years of Autocracy (Chinese: 五千年专制到此可以告一段落！; pinyin: Wǔqiān nián zhuānzhì dào cǐ kěyǐ gào yīduànluò!) and Time to End the Cult of Personality (Chinese: 个人崇拜从今可以休矣; pinyin: Gèrén chóngbài cóng jīn kěyǐ xiū yǐ). Shortly after, they threw eggs filled with pigment at the portrait of Mao Zedong on the Tiananmen Gate. They were immediately caught by members of the Beijing Students' Autonomous Federation (Chinese: 北京高校学生自治联合会, abbr. 高自联). At 5:00 pm, they were forced to appear in a press conference and admitted that their activities were totally irrelevant to the movement. At 7:00 pm, they were handed to Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. On a TV program broadcast the same day, members of the Movement claimed that they had nothing to do with the three youths, and criticized them. At 10:00 pm, the defaced portrait of Mao Zedong was taken down and replaced by a spare.