A 84-year-old man dies in a women's prison in Chengdu: from repeated medical services to death, Liu Heqiqiang's case leaves a chain of responsibilities that cannot be explained by the prison.

Death in prison often leaves only one result notice.The real determining responsibility, however, is those days before death that are not public.

On August 14, religious and human rights media Bitter Winter revealed that 84-year-old Falun Gong practitioner Liu Heqiqiang died while serving in a women’s prison in Chongqing.

For such a case, the most needed restoration is not a political slogan, but a medical record.

After an 84-year-old is imprisoned, every blood pressure, heart rate, and emergency medical record should be preserved; every medical visit should have time, doctors and diagnoses; and if the condition is serious enough to require repeated treatment, the prison should evaluate the risk of continuing imprisonment and should also leave administrative and medical documents.

These records determined whether Liu’s death was a consequence of an unavoidable disease, or whether the detention agencies failed to take adequate medical and protective measures when signs of danger had already appeared.

The Chinese prison is not a space outside legal supervision. The prison law grants the power to the prison administration to serve the prison personnel, but also means that the state is directly responsible for the life and medical care of the detainees. The ordinary person in society who suffers from illness can choose his own hospital, seek second opinion or care by his family; after the detainee loses these choices, the state actually takes over his decision to seek medical care.

Liu Heqiqi’s Falun Gong belief has also given another background to the case. The Chinese government has continued to repress Falun Gong since 1999 and has classified it as an illegal organization; international human rights agencies and overseas Falun Gong groups have long recorded allegations of related detention, conviction and detention abuse, while Beijing has denied allegations of systematic persecution.

Therefore, the most effective way to investigate Liu's death is not to let any party repeat their political conclusions, but to demand that the Chongqing prison system openly verify the facts: when she was imprisoned, what was the original disease, when the first serious symptoms appeared, which hospitals were sent to, what opinions doctors had made, when family members were informed of the condition, and the cause of death was determined by which medical institution.

Particularly for senior servants, whether they meet the legal conditions for out-of-guarantee medical treatment, temporary out-of-prison execution and so on, can not only be concluded by a sentence within the prison system.

Liu Heqiqi has been unable to personally describe the last period of detention.The rest of what he can speak is medical records, surveillance, service records and death certificates.

If these materials are complete, the state has the condition to prove that it has fulfilled its responsibilities.

If they can’t explain to family and society why an 84-year-old ended up dying in prison, then the question is not just why she was sentenced, but what the state agency had done before she died.