Mr. Li Hongwei is a 52 year-old male resident of Qianjin Street, Shuangta District, Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province. Mr. Li graduated from the Agricultural Mechanics School and was employed at the Agricultural Machinery Company.

After the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, Mr. Li attempted traveling to Beijing to appeal, but was abducted by the authorities on the way there. Mr. Li was then sent to a detention center for ten days. Later he was sent to the City's Xidayingzhi forced labor camp.  On September 24, 1999, Mr. Li was restrained in handcuffs and shackles, and the guards kept beating him. They punched him in his right ear, puncturing his eardrum and almost causing him to go deaf.

On October 30, 1999, the authorities sentenced Mr. Li to three years’ forced labor without a trail. He was sent to the second group of the Chaoyang City Forced Labor Camp. In January 2002, because Mr. Li refused to renounce his belief, the he was transferred the third group to do the slave labor - thirteen or fourteen hours' labor from 5 am through 8 pm every day. Those who couldn't meet their quota were beaten or forced to stand for hours with the upper half of the body bent over.  The camp authorities just supplied two meals per day. Besides the slave labor, he was often beaten. In January 2000, Mr. Li was practicing the exercises in a cell, and police Tong Xiaoli ordered officers Wang, Song, Jia and three other policemen drag Mr. Li into the reception room, where they shocked him with high voltage electric batons and kicked his chest and neck with their heavy boots. During the thirty minutes of torture, Mr. Li writhed in pain on the ground and his body swelled from the electric shocks. In February 2000, the guards incited prisoner Gao Chunhai to batter Mr. Li’s face and head for over twenty minutes, just because they had found him practicing exercises. Mr. Li's head and face were swollen, distorted and bruised. He had to use his fingers to help open his eyes. In August 2000, Tong Xiaoli forced Mr. Li to kneel down in the yard under the burning sun for more than two hours. In October 2000, he was released.

On the morning of September 26, 2002, Mr. Li was arrested as soon as he stepped out of his home by police officers from the Qianjin Police Station in Chaoyang City. He was then sent to the Wujiawa Detention Center, and died there on October 7, 2002.

On October 9, the police notified his family members of his death. During the autopsy, they found that a large area in Mr. Li's back had turned black and red as a result of electric shocks, and his ears had turned purple with blood inside after apparent attempts to wipe off the blood. When one family member tried to take pictures, but he was stopped and beaten by the police from the Shuangta District Police Department. The family member was then handcuffed and one of his arms twisted and injured. The police then smashed the camera and pulled out the film exposing it to the light. The police from the detention center initially claimed that Mr. Li died from being on a hunger strike, and later cited illness as the cause of death. The family members asked why had they not been notified until October 9th when Mr. Li died on the 7th. They also asked why they had not been informed of Mr. Li's illness and why no medical treatment had been arranged; and why Mr. Li had injuries all over his body and blood in his ears? The police offered no answers. The family made it clear that Mr. Li had been in good health and never had been sick before he was sent to the labor camp.

In the end, the police announced to Mr. Li's family two decisions: First, his body would not be handed over to them. Second, only a few people from Mr. Li's family would be allowed to attend the cremation to pay their respects when Mr. Li's body was cremated. Afterward, plainclothes policemen are stationed both inside and outside the building where Mr. Li's family lives. Anyone who pays a visit to Mr. Li's family is being followed. All family members are placed under threat, surveillance, and tight control by the police.

type=Case, Death; type=Labor Camp, Shaoyang City Labor Camp; location=Liaoning, Chaoyang