Gang of Four all gone

Yao Wenyuan (bottom right) is dead

Yao Wenyuan, the last living member of the Gang of Four is dead. According to Xinhua, he died of “diabetes” on December 23, but the news was only released today.

Danwei’s favorite Chinese blog, Massage Milk, had this to say about him:

Yao Wenyuan was the most cultured of the Gang of Four, but when cultured people do bad things, they are far worse than when uncultured people do them.

Xinhua had this to say about him:

He was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment by a special tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court in 1976, with political rights deprived for five years. He was released from prison in October 1996 after serving full jail term…

…The youngest gang member, Wang Hongwen, died of liver cancer in a Beijing hospital in 1992 while serving a life sentence.

Zhang Chunqiao died of cancer on April 21, 2005, at age of 88. He was given death sentence with a two-year reprieval by a special tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court in January 1981, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with political rights deprived for life in January, 1983, and was commuted again to 18 years in prison with political rights deprived for 10 years.

Jiang Qing was sentenced in 1981 to death with two-year reprieval. But the verdict later commuted to life in prison. Ten years later she hanged herself while on medical parole.