Xiong Zhengming

Mr. Xiong Zhengming from Wanyuan City, Sichuan Province died while in police custody, and his body was hastily cremated by the local police. It was first said that Mr. Xiong committed suicide while being transferred to the Xinhua Forced Labor Camp, but soon after issuing that statement, said he died in a traffic accident.

Mr. Xiong Zhengming, 39, was a computer science teacher at the Wanyuan City Vocational School. On March 15, 2007, Wanyuan City 610 Office agent Zhao Chenghua , and Public Security agents Ye Xudong and Wang Qiang forcibly took Mr. Xiong to the Wanyuan City First Detention Center, using the excuse that agents had detected that Mr. Xiong visited overseas websites. After being detained for more than eight months, the police sentenced Xiong Zhengming to one year of forced labor. Since he had already been detained for over eight months, in only 4-5 months his term should have ended. To get around this, the local police detained Mr. Xiong in the Wanyuan City Second Detention Center instead taking him to a labor camp. On December 5, 2007, Ye Xudong suddenly notified Mr. Xiong' parents (both in their eighties) that Mr. Xiong had committed suicide while enroute to the Sichuan Province Xinhua Forced Labor Camp, by jumping out of the vehicle. He wanted Mr. Xiong's father to sign a paper authorizing his body to be cremated. Mr. Xiong's father refused and requested an investigation into Mr. Xiong's cause of death.