Xiong Yan (dissident)

Xiong Yan (熊焱) is a Chinese dissident who served as a chaplain in U.S. Army in Iraq. Currently, he serves as a U.S. Army chaplain at the Warrant Officer Career College at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1985 and formally withdrew his membership from the CCP on June 4, 1989 after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. He was a student leader during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He was detained for 19 months in a Laogai(勞動改造), for his pro-democratic activities and fled China in 1992 to United States, where he studied theology in Boston. He went on to join the US Army. In 2005 he announced again in The Epoch Times that he withdrew his membership of the Chinese Communist Party. He is still active in overseas China democracy movement.

In 2009, he made a trip to Hong Kong to attend a candlelight vigils on the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. This was the first time for him, in 17 years to return to China since 1992.

Xiong Yan studied at Beijing University Law School from 1986-1989. He came to the United States of America as a political refugee in 1992. Xiong Yan was awarded his Doctorate from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary May 2009.

Xiong Yan is the author of two books. The first "From Tian An Men Square to Iraq" was published in Hong Kong in 2009. The second is a book of poetry published in 2010 titled "Being and Joy".