Only six months after the incident it was confirmed that Xia Zhenglun died in Guanyun County in September 2023.
by Yang Feng
Sometimes, in present-day China, it takes months to confirm an information. This was the case with the sad story of an insurance salesman called Xia Zhenglun, who was tortured to death in Guanyun County, which is under the administration of Lianyungang prefecture-level city, in Jiangsu province.
Guanyun County is where Xia was born in 1961. Reportedly, he shared the negative opinion about Falun Gong of many Chinese influenced by the government’s media until in 2012 he met some practitioners, read the movement’s literature, and changed his mind.
Xia was identified as a Falun Gong practitioner by the police in 2014, when his house was raided, and spiritual literature confiscated. His detention lasted for fifteen days. He was detained again in 2015, again for fifteen days.
He kept a low profile and practiced his Falun Gong quietly, which kept him out of jail for several years. According to his relatives, approaching retirement, he became more active, and the police arrested him in February 2023. He was detained at Guanyun County Detention Center.
In September 2023, he was transferred in emergency to Lianyungang First People’s Hospital and died shortly thereafter. It took several months for his relatives and co-religionists to investigate and collect several reports that he arrived at the hospital with the body badly bruised and swollen with edema. They insist that Xia was in good health when he was arrested.
They believe Xia just joined a long list of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other banned religious movements persecuted to death in jail.
Source: BITTER WINTER
