Li Jinhong / 李金鸿 — Media Profile & Archive

This archive accompanies the canonical profile of Li Jinhong / 李金鸿, one of five defendants in the 1990 Chenzhou prosecution of the organization described in the court judgment as the “Democratic China Front — Mountain Branch” (民主中国阵线山地支部).

Documented record

The surviving criminal judgment — Hunan Chenzhou Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court, Criminal Trial Division No. 1, case (1990) 郴一初字第88号, issued November 7, 1990 — convicted five defendants of the crime of forming a counterrevolutionary clique (反革命集团罪). The judgment records Li Jinhong, then 26, as a male native of Zhuzhou County and a cadre at the Zhouyuanshan sub-branch of the Zixing branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, living at No. 34, Seventh Village, Baoyuan Coal Mine.

The court treated Li Jinhong as a subordinate participant (accessory): it found he actively took part in the group’s activities and offered advice (“积极参加该反革命集团的活动，出谋划策”). He was placed in shelter-and-investigation on March 4, 1990 and formally arrested on June 6, 1990. He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, calculated from March 4, 1990 through March 3, 1994, plus two years’ deprivation of political rights. The judgment lists no defense counsel for him.

His co-defendants were Bai Xiaomao and Jiang Fuxing — found to be principal organizers and sentenced to eight years each — and Chen Xuejin and Li Yumin, treated as accessories (three years and one year respectively).

Post-sentence record and death

Beyond the judgment, the documented record consists of a single 2023 interview report (Women’s Rights in China, Zhang Jing reporting, July 1, 2023), based on an interview with Li Jinhong’s widow, Zhang Yan, supplemented by photographs of documents she provided. According to that report: he could not return to his bank post after his sentence and lived on odd jobs under chronic surveillance and harassment; he was detained in 1999 and again detained and secretly held in 2006; in 2011 state-security personnel seized a US$1,000 overseas medical donation for his ill daughter’s treatment, treating it as bail money (a receipt photograph is reproduced in the report); he married Zhang Yan in 2007 and had two daughters; and he worked a hospital medical-cleaning job in his later years.

The report states that he died in a car accident on his way to work in February 2020 (the exact date is unconfirmed). His widow disputes the account of the crash, citing broken surveillance cameras near the site, the absence of a recorded speed for the other vehicle, refused autopsy requests, and pressure for a quick cremation; she reported a settlement of about 1.7 million yuan in compensation. No official crash report or independent account of the death has been located. Her account of the crash is preserved here as an attributed claim, not an established fact. The same report states that fellow defendant Jiang Fuxing was confined at home by police when he tried to view the body.

Source lineage and identity caution

The judgment photographs (pages 1, 4 and 5; pages 2 and 3 not recovered) are the primary source for the criminal-case record. The judgment’s Chinese characters are the controlling reading for his name: 李金鸿 (traditional 李金鴻). A contemporary Industrial and Commercial Bank of China independent board director appointed in 2026 shares the same name; he is a different, living person and must not be merged with this record.

The organization’s Chinese name is read here, following the direct triple-read audit of the judgment photograph, as 民主中国阵线山地支部 (“Democratic China Front — Mountain Branch”). A separate working transcription rendered it as 民主中国华南山区支部； the audited reading is carried here.

The WRIC report is the sole carrier of the post-1994 narrative and the death account; its two language editions are a single lineage, not independent corroboration. No record of Li Jinhong appears in the major human-rights documentation surveyed (HRW, Amnesty, Dui Hua, CHRD, HRIC) beyond this case lineage.

Status caution

No reliable release record or independent death record has been located beyond the single-source account described above. The nominal end of the sentence must not be treated as evidence of release. His death is recorded as reported but uncorroborated.

Core sources

Hunan Chenzhou Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court, Criminal Judgment (1990) 郴一初字第88号, November 7, 1990 (surviving photographed pages 1, 4, 5).
Women’s Rights in China (WRIC), “六四反革命遺孀攜女「走線」背後的故事” (Zhang Jing reporting, July 1, 2023), interview with Zhang Yan and family-held judgment photographs (https://wrchina.org/archives/15730; English edition: https://crchina.org/story-behind-the-widow-of-tiananmen-massacre-smuggled-to-us-with-2-little-girls).