Liu Deyu (柳德玉) was a Falun Gong practitioner from Jingmen City, Hubei Province and a former cadre of the Jingmen City Health Epidemic Prevention Station. Monitoring sources report that he was born in 1956 and died in custody around the Spring Festival of 2024 at age 68.
Rights Defense Network, CHRD, and Minghui report a long history of detention beginning around 1999–2000. Minghui’s case dossier describes labor-camp and prison terms, periods of homelessness, loss of public employment and pension benefits, and allegations of beatings, force-feeding, and other mistreatment. Those historical and treatment claims remain source-attributed.
According to the sources, Liu was detained again on July 8, 2022 in Jingmen’s Dongbao District. The Dongbao District Court tried him on October 28, 2022. Minghui reports that he received a four-year sentence and a 5,000-yuan fine, with a stated term from July 10, 2022 to July 7, 2026.
On May 10, 2023, Liu was transferred to Shayang Fanjia… Prison. Rights Defense Network reports that he was later sent to the prison hospital and died around the Spring Festival of 2024. CHRD’s prisoner database, updated August 22, 2026, records his status as deceased.
Status: reported deceased in custody around Spring Festival 2024. The death is reported by monitoring organizations and is not independently confirmed by an official record.
Roster discrepancy: Rights Defense Network Issue 131, dated August 31, 2026, still lists 柳德玉 among people serving four-year sentences. That later monthly roster is inconsistent with the organization’s own July 19, 2026 death report and CHRD’s August 22 deceased status, and is treated here as stale.
Sources: Rights Defense Network death report, July 19, 2026; CHRD Prisoners of Conscience Database; Minghui victim dossier; Rights Defense Network Issue 131.