HONG KONG—The family of a young woman who died in detention in northern China is demanding an autopsy and alleging her body bore signs of abuse, according to her relatives.
Gao Xiuhua said her 19-year-old daughter, Xi Hong, went missing from work near her home in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, in September last year.
Two months later, Gao said, she received a notice from a local detention center informing her of Xi Hong’s death as the result of an ectopic pregnancy.
But Gao said that when she went to claim her daughter’s body, she noticed traces of trauma inconsistent with the alleged cause of death.
Officials contacted by telephone declined to discuss the case.
When Xi Hong’s family asked for an autopsy, officials at the detention center refused their request, she said in an interview Wednesday.
Gao said she suspects her daughter had been sexually assaulted before she died.
“On Sept. 22 of last year, Hohhot police locked my daughter in a local women’s education-through-labor detention center because they thought she was taking drugs. She died on Nov. 8 inside the center,” she said.
“I don’t know what went on from the day she was taken away to the afternoon of Nov. 8 when I received the death notice.”
No investigation
Gao said that when Xi Hong’s family members arrived at the hospital where her body was stored, they noticed someone had changed her clothing.
“There were bruises under her left breast. Traces of injuries were also found on her back. It seemed she had been beaten. But the reason for death provided by authority was an ectopic pregnancy. My daughter has always been in good health,” she said.
Gao said she has contacted every legal institution in Inner Mongolia to request a probe into her daughter’s death and even made a trip to Beijing recently to ask higher officials to intervene.
“The Inner Mongolian Public Security Bureau wouldn’t accept the case,” she said.
“We just want to know the true reason behind her death. The reason they provided was excessive bleeding from the ectopic pregnancy, but we discovered lots of physical evidence on my daughter’s body that suggests she was sexually assaulted.”
A staff member who answered the phone at the local government office that oversees Xi Hong’s community in Hohhot declined to answer questions.
“I don’t even know where you are calling from,” the staff member said.
“I can’t talk to you. We have a policy that our local office can’t answer your inquiries,” the person said before disconnecting.
Xi Hong’s family also requested to see a surveillance tape used to record daily activities inside the detention center, but they were told that the video had been erased.
Meanwhile the Inner Mongolian Armed Police Hospital refused to issue a death certificate to Xi Hong’s family. Death certificates are almost always issued by hospitals in similar cases.
A friend of Gao, surnamed Feng, said Xi Hong’s case raises numerous questions.
“First, the victim has many traces of bodily injuries, but authorities have refused to perform an autopsy. Second, they have refused to show us the surveillance video tape. Third, how can the detention center conclude that her death was caused by an ectopic pregnancy and, fourth, why did they change her clothes before the family arrived?”
“The family is now refusing to cremate the body. They want an autopsy to make sure whether it was an ectopic pregnancy that caused her death,” he said.
Common occurrence
Death in detention isn’t uncommon in China.
New York-based Human Rights Watch recently reported, further, that Chinese authorities are incarcerating drug users in detention centers that deny them access to treatment for drug dependency and put them at risk of physical abuse and unpaid forced labor.
Half a million people are confined within compulsory drug detention centers in China at any given time, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The report, based on investigations in Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, documents how China's June 2008 Anti-Drug Law compounds the health risks of suspected illicit drug users by allowing officials and security forces to detain them for up to seven years without trial.
China's Ministry of Public Security last month issued new guidelines aimed at improving conditions in detention centers, banning staff from seizing or confiscating detainees' property, protecting detainees from verbal or physical abuse, and ensuring their access to visitors.
Original reporting by Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin service. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated by Jia Yuan. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.