Meanwhile, Li’s friends expressed their suspicions regarding Li’s death. Fellow Hunan democracy activist Zhou Zhirong said, “Li Wangyang went to prison for 22 years and he didn’t even commit suicide. On the day of June 4, he was happily chatting with Zhu [Chengzhi] and was very optimistic about the future of democracy in China. He firmly believed that democracy would soon come to China and that dictatorship would come to an end. So, Li could not have committed suicide.” He also expressed that on the day of June 4, 10 security guards showed up to monitor Li at the hospital, so it is difficult to imagine that Li could commit suicide while the guards were watching over him.
Zhou also released a statement on Wednesday announcing the establishment of “The Committee to Investigate the Truth Regarding Li Wangyang’s Suicide.” The statement listed four main points that led Zhou and Li’s other democracy activist friends to suspect that local authorities had faked Li’s suicide after killing him themselves.
Democracy activist Tang Baiqiao is also a political dissident from Hunan province and was a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He currently lives in exile in New York, but is still in contact with his dissident friends in Hunan.
In 2001, Tang was in contact with Li Wangling, Li’s sister, to discuss matters regarding Li’s attempt to publicize the torture he suffered while in prison. But shortly afterwards, her contacts with Tang were discovered by the authorities and she was charged with “contacting foreign hostile forces” and sent to three years in a labor camp.
Tang told The Epoch Times: “I wanted to expose this today so that more people can understand the brutalities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
With reporting by Gu Qing'er and Ariel Tian.
Click www.ept.ms/ccp-crisis to read about the most recent developments in the ongoing crisis within the Chinese communist regime. In this special topic, we provide readers with the necessary context to understand the situation. Get the RSS feed. Get the new interactive Timeline of Events. Who are the Major Players?
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