Chinese dissidents launch petition to find the truth about Li Wangyang's "suicide"
Beijing (AsiaNews) - The family of Li Wangyang, one of China's first independent labour activists and pro-democracy campaigner in the Tiananmen movement, is not convinced that he committed suicide. Nor are his fellow dissidents who shared in his struggle. A petition has been launched urging the authorities to shed light on the circumstances of his death. Meanwhile, police is preventing people from seeing his body to pay their tribute. They are also delaying the autopsy.
Since he became a labour activist in the early 1980s, Li spent 23 years in prison for "counterrevolutionary" activities in Shaoyang where he headed a Workers Autonomous Federation during the events of 1989.
After he was released in 2000 on health grounds, he was tried and convicted on "subversion" charges, and handed down ten more years in prison.
On Wednesday, he was found hanging in a hospital room despite a 24/7 police watch. For the authorities, it was "suicide".
Before his death, he was one of the Tiananmen-related political prisoners who suffered the most from government repression.
For his family, it is "impossible" that he killed himself. Despite Li's impaired hearing, his sister said that the night before his "suicide," he asked her to buy him a radio and help him practice his listening ability. Less than a week ago, he had told a Hong Kong TV station that he would continue to fight for "a multi-party and democratic society."
An petition has been posted online calling on the government to shed light on what happened, demanding even that the United Nations conduct an investigation with criminal charges laid if his death is proven not to be a suicide.
Ostensibly, to quell the uncertainty about Li's death, police are willing to conduct an autopsy, but Li's brother doubts the authorities' offer is in good faith.
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