Day: August 10, 2021

The family members of seven young social and environmental activists arrested a year ago urged the Cambodian government on Tuesday to drop the incitement charges against them, echoing a letter by U.N. human rights experts calling on the government to hold their trial or unconditionally release the detainees.

The activists were detained in August and September 2020 for joining a peaceful protest at Freedom Park in the suburbs of the capital Phnom Penh demanding the release of imprisoned human rights defenders, including a popular union leader.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court charged the seven with “inciting to commit a felony or inciting to commit serious social unrest.” They have been held in pre-trial detention and face between six months and two years in prison and a fine if found guilty.

Their trial began on Dec. 30, 2020, but a hearing scheduled for this March 2 was postponed to June and later further postponed due to the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in the country. The court also denied their bail requests.

Chhoeun Daravy, Hun Vannak, Koet Saray, Tha Lavy, and Eng Malai were members of the Khmer Thavarak youth group, which advocates for the protection of human rights and social justice and raises awareness about environmental issues in Cambodia.

Muong Sopheak and Mean Prommony belonged to the Khmer Student Intelligent League Association, a group that mobilizes students to engage in issues concerning social development, good governance, and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Relatives of the seven who spoke to RFA agreed with calls by Cambodian and international human rights groups, the U.N., the United States and other democratic countries ​​that have all recently urged the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen to release about 85 jailed activists.

Five U.N. rights experts, including Vitit Muntarbhorn, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, sent a letter dated June 10 to the Cambodian government expressing concerns about the detentions of the youth activists.

“It is very concerning that these human rights defenders were arrested because of their organizing and participating in demonstrations of solidarity and protest against the arrest of their colleagues and other Cambodian human rights defenders, thus violating their inherent rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of expression,” the experts said in the letter.

They cited a provision in Cambodia’s Penal Code about the extension of pre-trial detention during which those accused must be brought to trial. The provision states that if a charged person is not called to appear before the trial court within these four months, the charged person shall be automatically released.“

‘They committed no offense’

Koet Vy, the younger sister of Koet Saray, said she supported a proposal by rights experts demanding the release of the youths.

“My brother has been detained for a long time and he has not committed of any crimes,” she said. “He should have been released. Now COVID-19 infections [are on the rise], and he is in a very difficult situation.”

Mean Samnop, the brother of Mean Prommony, said that the continued detention of the seven youths has caused his family mental anguish and brought no benefit to the government or society.

“It has been 10 months now,” he told RFA. “I do not understand. They committed no offense, so why do they have to be imprisoned? I support the [U.N. demands] that they be released.”

Chin Malin, secretary of state of the Ministry of Justice and vice chairman of the Cambodian Human Rights Committee, told the Phnom Penh Post on Monday that the statements by the five international human rights experts were based on reports from pro-opposition groups and that there is no solid legal basis for the activists’ release.

Cambodian civil society officials said they supported calls for the activists’ release.

Heng Kimhong, head of the research and advocacy program of the Cambodian Youth Network, urged the government to drop the charges against the seven youths for past actions and protests during which they demanded rights and freedoms guaranteed by the country’s constitution.

The activists’ activities did not cause as serious a social impact as the court charged, he said.

“If the detentions continue, they will seriously affect Cambodia’s reputation and affect the principle of justice, which says that justice must be ensured and provided quickly for the people of Cambodia,” Heng Kimhong said.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Authorities in Vietnam have arrested a Facebook user for posting mild criticism of government COVID-19 policies, while a university fired a lecturer after a student shared on her comments faulting Hanoi’s pandemic response on the social media platform.

The Tien Giang People’s Procuracy announced Tuesday that it would prosecute Tran Hoang Huan, 33, on charges of making, storing and spreading or propagandizing information or documents against the state under in accordance with the Article 117 of the Penal Code, according state media.

Huan, a resident of My Tho city in the far southern province of Tien Giang, had used a Facebook account under the name Huan Tran to post content against the Vietnamese Communist Party and the state on 186 occasions.

His Facebook account remains active and many of his recent posts opposed the use of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, which many Vietnamese oppose because of their perceived low quality and because of longstanding animosity toward China over history and territorial issues.

Huan had earlier called on the government to provide relief to citizens by waiving electricity and water bills during the pandemic.

“The arrest and detention of Tran Hoang Huan marks yet another chapter in the grim tale of Vietnam’s crackdown on freedom of expression online,” Ming Yu Hah, the deputy regional director for campaigns at Amnesty International, told RFA.  

“Huan had used his Facebook page to share information about COVID-19 vaccines, lockdowns and to call on the Vietnam government to subsidize electricity and water fees while many Vietnamese are facing economic hardships due to the pandemic. The Vietnamese authorities should listen to these calls, not repress them,” she said. 

Ming Yu Hah said authorities had used Article 117 to detain Huan on “vague accusations” of causing public confusion or defaming the government so they could prevent dissent.

“Huan’s name now joins an ever-expanding list of Vietnamese activists detained merely for sharing peaceful criticism,” she said, and called for the release of Huan and other detainees.

“It is imperative that Vietnam’s leadership starts taking a radically different approach to human rights, and freedom of expression in particular,” she said.

Student reports lecturer

Vietnam has arrested and prosecuted eight people using Article 117 since the beginning of this year. Human rights groups say the provision allows the government to gag any dissent.

A university in the central coastal city of Danang has fired a lecturer for her “wrong statements” about Vietnam’s COVID-19 fighting measures.

Duy Tan University made the announcement Monday after a student posted on Facebook a video of the lecturer, Tran Thi Tho, part of the university’s English faculty, arguing with the student about government relief for those affected by the pandemic.

Tho said in the video that the government of Vietnam is letting people struggle with very limited help while the pandemic is raging all over the country.

She highlighted how thousands of people are fleeing the country’s southern provinces and Ho Chi Minh City on motorbikes to return to their hometowns thousands of kilometers away, just to escape the virus.

The student in the video accused Tho of disliking Vietnam and promoting negative stereotypes against Asian people.

The university has also reported the lecturer to the Ministry of Police, who said they are investigating the case.

Pham Minh Hoang, a former professor at Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnic, told RFA that dissent should be allowed in academia.

“People who dare to speak their criticisms at a university are a must. Schools, especially universities are obliged to train students into people who have their own opinions, not to become machines just acting on demand,” Hoang said.

“If we continue this way, when everything must be molded and any person who speaks their opinions differently from those of the government and state must face severe consequences, then it means Vietnamese will never strive for anything,” said Hoang.

‘Despicable’ firing

Nguyen Vi Yen, a Vietnamese student studying in Europe, wrote on Facebook that she felt Duy Tan University’s firing of Tho was “despicable.”

“Duy Tan does not deserve to be called a university, let alone its own name ‘Duy Tan,’ which means reform,” she said.

Tho declined to comment to RFA about her case.

Education Minister Nguyen Kim Son told the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper before the firing that “the education system management needs to encourage criticism about social issues in general and educational policies in particular.”

Though the country struggles to effectively contain a fourth wave of the virus, Vietnam had been relatively successful compared to other countries during the first three waves. Of more than 224,000 confirmed cases during the pandemic, more than 220,000 were diagnosed since April 27, the start of the fourth wave.

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January. Arrests continue in 2021.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Yves Moreau is a professor and bioinformatician at the University of Leuven in Belgium whose research focuses on AI algorithms and software platforms for the integration of complex data in clinical genomics and drug discovery. His LinkedIn profile says he is “engaged in a reflection on how information technology and artificial intelligence are transforming our world and on how to make sure this transformation is beneficial for all.” One particular concern of his has been China’s use of DNA profiling in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where authorities have collected DNA samples from Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities amid a wider campaign of mass surveillance and repression that includes detaining an estimated 1.8 million in camps and the use of forced labor. 

Moreau’s mission involves “pushing back against the emergence of surveillance societies” that use such technological advances. It also involves pushing academic journals to retract published studies that are problematic and unethical. One of his latest targets was Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine (MGGM), a journal founded in 2013 that focus on genetics research with medical applications, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.  

Two years ago, the journal began running papers by authors in China on forensic genetics, a field that involves close collaboration with police, according to an investigative report by The Intercept published in early August. Moreau outlined his concerns about the studies in an email to the journal’s editor-in-chief, Suzanne Hart, who also is deputy director of the medical genetics and genomic medicine fellowship training program at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute. According to the investigative report, Moreau pointed out that the journal had published only two forensic genetic studies from outside China since its inception, suggesting that it was “specifically identified as a journal where forensic population genetic studies of vulnerable Tibetan and [M]uslim minorities can be published.”  

Hart said she was looking into the matter, but when nothing seemed to be done, Moreau in June notified the editorial board about the papers in question and told them how police in China use forensic genetics. Regarding Hart as too slow to provide explanations to the board or to Moreau, eight of the board’s 25 members resigned. 

 “We are actively investigating and driving toward a timely, transparent resolution,” The Intercept quoted Hart as saying in an emailed statement. “We take the concerns expressed extremely seriously and regret that delayed communications may have indicated otherwise.” 

Reporter Adile Ablet from RFA’s Uyghur Service spoke with Moreau on Saturday about how the controversial articles came to his attention, why the information is dangerous, and how to prevent DNA data from being used by regimes like China to repress Uyghurs and Tibetans. The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

RFA: How did these articles actually draw your attention? Were you aware of China’s collection of Uyghur DNA information at that time?  

Moreau: Forensic population genetics is the use of genetics such as in law enforcement by the police to solve crimes. Population genetics uses genetics to understand the history of the origin of populations. For example, biologists are quite intrigued by the Uyghur population because it’s an oddly mixed population of Caucasians and Tibetans. From a political perspective, it’s a really quite interesting problem of when that population mix [occurred] and in what way. When you actually want to use these DNA databases, you use them to match a sample from a crime scene with that of a suspect.  

Now, what I have seen is that when you look at those studies there is really a lot of them about Tibetans about Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. In about half of all the scientific articles, there is a co-author from public security, from the judiciary, or from institutions that are directly under their control. I consider this to be the police.   

I’ve also been fighting against ethnic facial recognition classifying faces as Uyghurs based on unjust pictures and surveillance cameras. We shouldn’t be doing this kind of research. We have ethical principles that are well established and for when we actually do the analysis.   

Since 2019, I’ve been [pointing out] research that is unethical and should not have been carried out. It should not be published. And if it’s published it should be retracted. It should be removed. This is actually quite a strong signal in the scientific community. Scientists do not like to have their publications retracted. It’s very embarrassing. Scientists are people who are supposed to be very honorable. Having your papers retracted is really an annoyance. 

This is a journal [MGGM] that normally does not publish this kind of research. It publishes medical research, so it’s mostly doctors who publish about genetic diseases. They don’t publish this kind of study. It was very surprising to see that it was suddenly publishing this kind of research. I talked to them [about it] in a not very adversarial manner, saying ‘Well, I think you have a problem.’  

The big publishers are multibillion-dollar companies, and they are very quiet. China is a smaller market, but it’s a very fast-growing market … so their future revenue will depend on China. And they know that Chinese authorities are quite fierce in their actions when they feel that you interfering with their policy. Publishers know that the Chinese authorities will not be happy is they are being perceived as interfering with Chinese policies. Here, I’m speculating. I don’t have proof of this.  

At the end of June, some members of the [MGGM] editorial board had given fair warning, and basically they expected an answer but were not getting any. And so, members of the editorial board started resigning. There are only three people, three scientists who are really responsible for organizing the scientific evaluation and they’re publishing [about] 500 articles per year, so there are a lot of things coming in. Maybe [they] didn’t realize that this was a problematic issue because you have to explain to [the] scientists that there is a problem with what’s happening to the Uyghurs or in Tibet. You have to explain that those research studies often involve people from the police and that they actually feed directly into the expertise of the police. Scientists do not realize that. 

When they realized something was happening, they panicked and they basically stuck their heads in the sand, not realizing that there might be consequences because members of the editorial board were resigning over the ethics of a journal. 

RFA: Can you explain how and why the DNA information in those papers is dangerous?  

Moreau: The information that is published in the papers is itself not very dangerous. The same data is then accessible to the police who are actually part of the program of establishing DNA databases. People working for the police in genetics often are not highly trained people. If you’re not careful with your DNA profiling, then the information in your database is not reliable.   

When they publish those papers together with the academics, they can say that the database that they are building for them is a good database and it’s reliable. It gives these people social status and this is part of the massive effort in Xinjiang in the rest of China to deploy this DNA database. It is by far the biggest problem, but they also have this national male DNA database that is being deployed across the whole of China. 

The research itself is maybe not directly hurting anyone. The people who gave their samples are not being hurt because they gave their samples. But this research is fundamental to actually building this DNA database infrastructure, which is one of the elements of this surveillance system that has many elements. It’s a piece of a puzzle. For me, DNA is also particularly worrisome because it gives this kind of magical powers to the authorities like what’s in your body, who you are related to, who is a Uyghur and who is a Han…It gives people the impression that the state does all these nearly magical things, that the state knows everything. The police know everything about you, [and] they know where you have been. They know your family.  

RFA: Why do you think these papers were published by this journal in the first place? Do you think they didn’t pay enough attention to the content or is there something else? 

When you have research, we have quite a clear ethical framework so that [it] has to satisfy some key principles. The first principle of medicine is not to ham people, and this applies to forensic genetics — non-malfeasance. Here you already have a problem [because] you know there are serious human rights violations across China. There are crimes against humanity increasing in Xinjiang, and you do research on the vulnerable groups and you involve the police. You know that there is a real risk that even though the research itself directly may not hurt anybody.  

The second principle is beneficence, the idea that it will do good. This benefit is a lot less clear because Chinese police forces are trying to use DNA databases to catch criminals, but they’re also using them to control populations. So the notion of benefit is really not as clear. Then you have the idea that risks and benefits need to be shared fairly among people.  

And the third one is autonomy: That when you do research, people should have the freedom to participate in research. And there is another very big problem because this is checked by informed consent, but there is no way for anybody to go and check whether the consent was there. The notion that free, informed consent does not make sense when we are talking about this type of study on the most vulnerable groups that involve the police. 

It means that every study involving the police, even if it’s not about a minority, is problematic because the police are misbehaving. And so how can we trust the police outside Xinjiang or outside Tibet while they have this DNA database of the entire male population they’re trying to build?  So ethical questions are very big. We have a problem here, but we don’t necessarily know the answer because it’s a complicated question. But if the journal doesn’t do anything, then we know there is something wrong. 

RFA: Why do we need to raise awareness about collection of DNA? How do we fight its use by hostile forces or governments like China? 

Moreau: This is an issue that I expect will get more visibility. It’s going to be a very complicated issue because researchers don’t like to be in the news so I’m putting people in uncomfortable positions. There is really something important that can be done here. I can’t say that this will help solve what’s happening in Xinjiang, unfortunately, and I very much wish that we could really help. But a lot of this would not have been possible without a lot of research that has occurred in the past 10 or 20 years. If researchers had been more careful, the extent of the tools that are available would not be the same.  

When we do research, we should be thinking about whether people will get hurt. If we think people will get hurt, we have to do something about it. So, retractions are important because they will tell scientists that if they do something that is problematic … they will have to pay the price. 

Reported by Adile Ablet for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Rosanne Gerin.

Political opposition figures and analysts in Myanmar say they see scant hope that progress can be made toward resolving the country’s crisis in expected talks between the generals who overthrew the elected government and a representative from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Appointed by 10-member ASEAN on Aug. 4 after months of delay, Erywan Yusof—a senior Brunei diplomat—has said he will insist on meeting with jailed members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government overthrown and arrested in a the Feb. 1 military coup.

He has yet to announce a date for his visit, though, citing a need to consult with other countries and stakeholders concerned with post-coup violence in Myanmar and its possible impact on stability in the wider Southeast Asian region.

Erywan is now tasked with implementing a five-point consensus on Myanmar agreed by ASEAN at a special summit held in April in Jakarta and calling for the appointment of an envoy, provision of humanitarian assistance, cessation of violence, dialogue among all parties, and mediation by the envoy.

Speaking on Monday on condition of anonymity, a member of the NLD’s Central Committee said he welcomes ASEAN’s mediation in the post-coup crisis, but voiced concern that the country’s ruling military will simply use the 10-nation regional bloc for its own ends.

“One of our concerns is that the regime will use the mediation process as a way to buy time and try to win international recognition,” the NLD member said. “And if that happens, ASEAN’s current leaders will be despised by future generations [in our country].”

“This will be an opportunity for ASEAN to raise its prestige if it can secure a meeting with State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, whom the people of Myanmar trust and respect as their irreplaceable leader,” he said.

Erywan may find that junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing does not allow him to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi or with other NLD figures currently held in jail or on trial in the country’s capital Naypyidaw, other sources said.

“Min Aung Hlaing has no intention of negotiating,” said Than Soe Naing, a political analyst based in Myanmar.  

The envoy “could ask for permission to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, and he could say that he wanted to meet with other important people, too, but the military would simply reject his requests,” he said, adding, “He’s only a representative from ASEAN.”

“He might say ‘Please stop [the violence],’ but this won’t happen,” he said.

‘Chance for a meaningful dialogue’

ASEAN, which follows a founding principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of member states, will never be able to solve Myanmar’s political crisis, Than Soe Naing said.

“Who will be on the ASEAN delegate’s list of people to meet?” asked Sai Leik, general secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy in Myanmar’s Shan state. “Will people like Aung San Suu Kyi and [former Myanmar president] Win Myint be allowed to meet with him? Will he meet with the resistance groups?”

“Only if he gets a chance to meet with all these people will there be a chance for a meaningful dialogue, but it is questionable whether all of this can happen,” he said.

“If he just meets with the military leaders selected by Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and then leaves the country, the whole thing will be meaningless. People will not get what they want, and the mediation process will only strengthen the junta’s hold on power.”

Myanmar’s military leaders have already recognized Erywan’s appointment as ASEAN envoy, and he will be allowed to enter the country, said Naing Swe Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Strategic Studies Institute, a pro-military think tank in Yangon.

“He will hold talks with government leaders, but the process will have to go in accordance with the road map laid out by the State Administration Council,” he said, using the junta’s formal name.

“I don’t see any changes in this. There could be political dialogue, but I don’t think there will be much progress,” added Naing Swe Oo.

On Feb. 1, Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party in the country’s November 2020 election.

The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide demonstrations calling for a return to civilian rule, killing at least 962 people over the past six months.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Chinese authorities in a Tibetan populated region of Qinghai province arrested three men on Sunday for sharing photos on social media amid tightened security measures put in place for the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, according to a Tibetan source.

Identified as Rinchen Dorje and Kelsang Nyima, from Domda village in Yushu, also called Kyegudo, and Lhundup from Dza Sershul, the men were detained by police conducting random inspections in the area, a source in Yushu told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

The men were charged with sharing photos of local events on the WeChat social media platform with Tibetans living in exile, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“They were part of a WeChat group called the United Association, which has members both inside and outside of Tibet,” the source said. “We don’t know where the men are being held at the moment.”

“Three days had been set aside to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the founding of Kyegudo, but because of the coronavirus pandemic and for several other reasons, the Chinese authorities decided to hold the celebration only for two days.”

“However, lots of restrictions were put in place forbidding people from discussing these events or sharing information about them with the outside world,” the source said.

Police deployed to Kyegudo town’s market square conducted inspections during anniversary events, and streets and playgrounds were also put under surveillance, the source said.

“During these random checks, these three men were taken away by the police after being handcuffed and put into a police vehicle without explanation,” he said.

China has imposed strict communication clampdowns in Tibet and Tibetan areas of western Chinese provinces aimed at stopping the flow of news about protests or other politically sensitive information to Tibetans living exile and other outside contacts, sources say.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Reported by Sangyal Kunchok for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Zhao Baozhu, a democracy activist from the central Chinese province of Hunan, has died of late-stage liver cancer at the age of 63, RFA has learned.

Zhao was the brother-in-law of Hunan activist Li Wangyang, who died in suspicious circumstances in June 2012, and had spent years campaigning for truth and redress over Li’s death, which police claimed was “suicide.”

Li’s death in a hospital in Hunan province’s Shaoyang city on June 6 sparked an international outcry, with protests in Hong Kong, and his sister Li Wangling and her husband Zhao placed under house arrest.

Zhao died at 6.20 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 10 due to complications from liver cancer.

In a video clip paying tribute to Zhao, Li Wangling said: “I only had one brother, and he is gone, and now I have lost my husband too.”

Li said there are plans to inter Zhao’s remains in Shaoyang’s Dashanling Cemetery, not far from Li Wangyang’s tomb.

Lin Jiancheng, the former journalist who reported on Li’s situation just days before his death, said he had known Zhao and Li for eight years, adding: “Maybe they hated me at first, but now, they are like family.”

Fellow activist Lin Tan said he is worried about Li’s financial situation in the wake of her husband’s death, but that raising funds for the family would likely be deemed a breach of China’s national security law.

“It’s not just paying our respects that’s banned: even remittances could be regarded as endangering national security,” Lin Tan said.

Sacrifices for democracy

Li Wangyang’s former defense lawyer Tang Jingling said Zhao and Li had sacrificed many things to support Li Wangyang’s democracy activism over many years.

“I would like to pay tribute to the couple and bid farewell to Mr. Zhao Baozhu,” Tang said in the video. “I think that what he has given up so much for will, one day, be realized.”

“It would have been Zhao’s greatest regret to have died before winning redress for Li Wangyang,” he said.

Zhao told RFA in July, as he was nearing the end of his life, that his remaining wish was to see democracy in China.

“I have always hoped I would see the arrival of a democratic China before I die,” he told RFA on July 7, 2021. “A free China, a democratic China.”

“But maybe I will never see it after all, the way things are going.”

Zhao said he was already receiving only palliative care by the time of the interview.

“The cancer is at an advanced stage now … and the treatment can only reduce the pain,” he said. “I’m confined to my bed all day.”

Death in police custody

Li Wangyang, 62, died at a hospital in Shaoyang city in the custody of local police, allegedly on June 6. When relatives arrived at the scene, his body was hanging by the neck from the ceiling near his hospital bed, but was removed by police soon afterwards.

Police took away Li’s body after his death was discovered and kept it in an unknown location, Li’s relatives said.

Relatives, friends, and rights groups have all called into question several details of both circumstance and timing which they say point to the possibility of foul play, including photographs distributed on the Chinese microblog service Sina Weibo, which showed Li’s feet touching the floor.

Li, a former worker in a glass factory, was jailed for 13 years for “counterrevolution” after he took part in demonstrations inspired by the student-led protests in Beijing, and for a further 10 years for “incitement to overthrow state power” after he called for a reappraisal of the official verdict on the crackdown.

He was blind in both eyes and had lost nearly all his hearing when he was finally released from prison in May 2011, his family said.

Li’s death came as Chinese authorities moved to crack down on dissidents and rights activists around the country, in a bid to prevent any public memorials on the 23rd anniversary of the June 4, 1989 bloodshed.

The authorities have refused to make public the results of a recent autopsy on Li’s body.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.