Liao, a People’s University graduate student and co-editor with Wang Shengli of the unofficial student journal Da Jia (Everyone), received a three-year prison sentence from the Beijing People’s Intermediate Court in August 1993. Liao was arrested on June 8, 1992, and is said to have been charged with counterrevolution on December 1992. He was initially held at the Banbuqiao Detention Center in Beijing where a hepatitis infection he contracted was left untreated.