Li Zhengling

Chinese Name: 李正灵
Gender: Male
Age: 44
City: Gulin County
Province: Sichuan
Occupation:
Date of Death: 2008-06-24
Date of Most Recent Arrest:
Most recent place of detention: Deyang City Prison
Case Description:

Mr. Li Zhengling, also known as Li Erwa, was born October 9, 1964, and lived in Gulin County, Sichuan Province. He retired from the Yanyuan County Armed Police Department, and was employed by the Taiping Town Store in Gulin County Chinese Herb Company. He retired early, and ran the herb store at the border of Taiping Town, Gulin and Xishui County, Guizhou Province. He began cultivating Falun Dafa in 1996, and benefited both physically and spiritually.

After July 20, 1999, when the persecution started, Mr. Li Zhengling joined group exercises at the Changzheng Bridge, located at the border of Sichuan and Guizhou Provinces. Officers from Xingmin District Police Station in Xishui County, Guizhou Province and Taiping Town Police Station in Gulin County, Sichuan Province arrested him, and detained him in the Xishui County Detention Center. Authorities from the Xishui County Police Department, the Xingmin District Police Station, and the Taiping Town Police Station in Gulin County demanded 8,000 yuan each from Mr. Li Zhengling's family as a condition of his release, but Mr. Li's wife did not have the money. Three days later, the police officers took Mr. Li to the Tucheng Township and illegally sentenced him to three years in a forced labor camp. Mr. Li was imprisoned in the Qing Town Forced Labor Camp, where he was subjected to numerous types of torture, including being locked in a small cell (1), forced overtime work, forced standing for long periods of time, hanging by handcuffs, brutal beatings, and shocks from electric batons. His term was extended by two months even though his physical health was extremely poor.

Mr. Li Zhengling was released in December 2002, and he got involved in a coal business in Taiping Town. On December 28, 2004, six police officers from the Gulin County Police Department, led by the head of the Criminal Police Team Zou Qiang, ransacked Mr. Li's home and took him to the Gulin County Detention Center, where he became blind in his left eye due to torture. The county hospital doctor said he should be bailed out on medical parole, but the 610 Office refused, and planned on sentencing him to prison.

On August 8, 2005, Communist Party officials sentenced Mr. Li to five years in prison and sent him to the Deyang Prison in Sichuan Province. In April 2006, detention center officials notified Mr. Li's family that he was in critical condition. When his wife Hong Shiping and sister-in-law Qiu Jufen came to the Deyang Prison in Huangxu Town, they saw that Mr. Li 's entire body was swollen, and he had injuries on his face, nose and mouth. He was unable to urinate on his own and was using a catheter. He could not recognize people, yet the prison told his family members that they could only see him for 30 minutes, and that they could not release him.

In October 2007, when Mr. Li Zhengling's family went to Deyang Prison to visit him, they saw that he was disfigured, emaciated, and blind in both eyes, and he could not take care of himself. When his family members requested that he be released on medical grounds, a prison warden replied, "He has not been 'transformed' so he cannot be released."

On June 24, 2008, officers from Taiping Police Station notified his family that Mr. Li had died in Shuangliu Police Hospital in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province.