{"id":27898,"date":"2012-06-06T14:16:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=27898 "},"modified":"2012-06-06T14:16:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T14:16:00","slug":"27898-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=27898","title":{"rendered":"Leading Tiananmen Dissident Found Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Li, 62, was found dead in a ward at Daxiang hospital in Shaoyang city, Hunan province on Wednesday morning, his brother-in-law Zhao Baozhu told AFP by telephone.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Police appeared to suspect suicide as the cause of death and had taken Li&#8217;s body away without the family&#8217;s permission, Zhao said.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;Last evening we were together, Li Wangyang did not show any signs of suicide, it is strange,&#8221; Zhao said.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;Li Wangyang is a man with a strong mind and strong spirit. Police have taken away his body without the approval of the family.&#8221;<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Zhao refused to comment further, saying he feared his phone was being monitored by police.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Officials at the hospital when contacted by AFP said the cause of death was unclear.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">As a leading dissident Li was subjected to heavy police surveillance with up to 10 guards monitoring his hospital ward, rights groups said.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Li had met supporters ahead of the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen democracy protests, brutally crushed when soldiers fired upon unarmed students and citizens in central Beijing on June 3-4, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, dead.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in China said Li was found by his sister and brother-in-law hanging from a window in his ward by a bandage tied around his neck.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;We cannot rule out that security guards monitoring him tortured him to death and faked a suicide,&#8221; the centre said in a statement.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Once a factory worker in Shaoyang, Li was sentenced to 13 years in prison for &#8220;counter-revolutionary&#8221; crimes for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen protests, which spread nationwide, the centre said.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Not long after his release in 2001, he was arrested and convicted of &#8220;inciting subversion&#8221; and sentenced to another 10 years.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/asia\/china\/9314192\/Top-China-dissident-from-Tiananmen-democracy-protests-found-dead.html\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; color: #034af3; \"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \"><strong>original article<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<br style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \" \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Li Wangyang, who had been in jail for over 22 years, died under unusual circumstances Wednesday. &amp;nbsp;Authorities claimed he committed suicide but removed the body before obtaining his family&amp;#8217;s permission. &amp;nbsp;Li&amp;#8217;s treatment over the years had left him almost deaf and blind, and he had difficulty walking.&amp;nbsp;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}