Li Wangyang was found on
June 6 hanging in his room at the Daxiang District People's Hospital in
Shaoyang, Hunan Province. The authorities said at the time that he had
committed suicide -- a claim friends of the deaf and blind labor rights
activist described as "insulting" and "ridiculous."
Hong Kong government
officials and human rights activists publicly questioned whether Li
killed himself. That pressure helped prompt Hunan officials in mid-June
to ask forensic experts from outside the province to carry out a new
autopsy investigation into Li's death.
That investigation
reached the same conclusion as before, according to a report Thursday
from the Hong Kong China News Agency citing the Hunan Provincial Public
Security Bureau. The examination was carried out by five legal medical
experts from the Forensic Pathology Association of China, the report
said.
Calls to local officials seeking further comment on Li's death and the investigation rang unanswered Friday.
The circumstances
surrounding Li's death have led to large demonstrations in Hong Kong, a
special administrative region of China, most notably during a visit two
weeks ago by the Chinese president, Hu Jintao.
The Hong Kong goverment
issued a statement Thursday saying that it had noted the result of the
investigation but would not comment on the subject. It said it had
"conveyed the public's concerns over the matter" to Beijing.
Li's death came two days
after the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre.
Li, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for mobilizing local workers
in support of the student democracy movement, would have been under
24-hour watch because of the sensitive nature of the anniversary, his
supporters and human rights groups have pointed out.
After serving most of his
initial sentence, Li -- by then rendered nearly deaf and blind,
allegedly by torture during his imprisonment -- was sentenced to another
10-year prison sentence in 2001 for "inciting subversion of state
power." He was admitted to the hospital shortly after being released
last year.
According to friends who had visited him before his death, Li did not appear to be someone who intended to kill himself.
Amnesty International
and Human Rights in China have cited relatives' accounts that Li's feet
were still on the ground when he was found hanging in his room, and that
being blind and unable to walk unaccompanied, he would have been hard
pressed to find a noose.
Appeals at the time by
the family for an autopsy in the presence of a lawyer of their choice
were refused, and his body taken away, according to Amnesty.
There are now concerns
about the safety of Li's relatives. His sister Li Wangyang and her
husband, Zhao Baozhu, were detained on June 9, Amnesty said in a
statement this week. They have not been heard of since June 9 and their
whereabouts are unknown, it said.
In an interview with the
Hong Kong television station iCable just before his death, Li said, "I
was just sentenced to jail and am not yet beheaded. Even if I were
beheaded, I would not regret it. For democracy and the survival of the
country, ordinary man should take responsibility."
Li is among more than
two-dozen Chinese political prisoners named in the U.S. State
Department's country report on China's Human Rights Practices for 2011.
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