Qincheng Prison
| Qincheng Prison | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 秦城监狱 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 秦城監獄 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Ministry of Public Security Qincheng Prison (Chinese: 公安部秦城监狱) is a maximum-security prison located in Qincheng Village, Xingshou, Changping District, Beijing in the People's Republic of China. The prison was built in 1958 with aid from the Soviet Union and is the only prison belonging to China's Ministry of Public Security. The Ministry of Justice operates other non-military prisons.
Political prisoners have been incarcerated in Qincheng, among them participants in the Chinese democracy movement and Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Famous former inmates include Li Rui, Jiang Qing, Yuan Geng, Bao Tong, Dai Qing, as well as Tibetan figures such as the 10th Panchen Lama Choekyi Gyaltsen and Phuntsok Wangyal. Other inmates included many communist cadres who struggled during the Cultural Revolution, such as Bo Yibo, Peng Zhen, Liu Xiaobo, Israel Epstein, Sidney Rittenberg, Michael Shapiro, and David Crook. More recently, high-ranking officials accused of corruption such as Chen Xitong, Chen Liangyu, Bo Xilai, and Zhou Yongkang were also imprisoned here.
The prison is located at the eastern foothill of Yanshan, facing the North China Plain in the east, north and south. The plain is where Qincheng Farm (Chinese: 秦城农场; pinyin: Qínchéng Nóngchǎng) is located, which is part of the prison.