Mr. Liu Renge, 56, Jilin

Name: Liu Renge (???)
Gender: Male
Age: 56
Occupation: Employee at Tonghua County Township Enterprises Bureau
Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 28, 2011
Date of Most Recent Release: Died in custody
Date of Death: July 22, 2011
Province: Jilin
City: Kuaidamao Town, Tonghua County
Most Recent Place of Detention: Tonghua County Detention Center (??????)

Case Details:

On June 28, 2011, Officers from the Tonghua County Domestic Security Division illegally arrested Mr. Liu as he was going to Ying’ebu Town to distribute Falun Gong-related materials and other information exposing human rights abuses. He was immediately taken to the county’s detention center. He died suddently in police custody three weeks later, on July 22. During his detention, police refused to allow his family to visit him.

Agents from the Tonghua County 610 Office and police department officers transported Mr. Liu’s body to the Tonghua City Funeral Parlor before informing his family of his death. They then called the family at noon on July 22 to come identify his body. When family members inquired as to how Mr. Liu died, a police officer replied, “At around 6:00 p.m. on July 21, 2011, Domestic Security Division officers took Mr. Liu from the detention center to the county’s Domestic Security Division to interrogate him. The interrogation ended at 4:00 a.m. on July 22.” The officer said he did not know when Mr. Liu was sent back to the detention center. Mr. Liu’s family then asked exactly when he died. The officer said, “At 10:00 a.m. on July 22.”

When asked if Mr. Liu was physically abused during the interrogation, the police officer only replied vaguely that Mr. Liu had undergone some kind of corporal punishment. The family then requested to view all of the video recordings from Mr. Liu’s detention and interrogation, up until the moment he died. In response, however, the police officer only played a short video, explaining the seen displayed:  The camera faced an entrance that appeared to be a cell in the detention center. As soon as two men carried Mr. Liu through the door, he collapsed. Then the video ended. When Mr. Liu’s family asked to see the video recordings from before and after that episode, the police officer replied that, “All the [files of the] previous videos are corrupted.”

After Mr. Liu’s body was taken to the funeral parlor, two vans with over ten plainclothes police officers reportedly monitored it non-stop. Tonghua County Domestic Security Division and the Tonghua County 610 Office agents threatened Mr. Liu’s family and prohibited his relatives and friends from viewing his remains. The police refused to name who was responsible for Mr. Liu’s death. Mr. Liu’s remains were transferred to the cold storage room on the evening of July 24.