Chen Guangcheng

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chen.
Chen Guangcheng

Chen Guangcheng at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on May 1, 2012
Born (1971-11-12) 12 November 1971 (age 40)
Nationality People's Republic of China
Education Nanjing University Medical School (1998–2001)
Occupation Civil rights activist
Known for activism on behalf of rural poor
Home town Dongshigu, Shandong Province, China
Spouse Yuan Weijing
Awards Time 100 (2006)
Ramon Magsaysay Award (2007)
Chen Guangcheng
Traditional Chinese 陳光誠
Simplified Chinese 陈光诚

Chen Guangcheng (born 12 November 1971) is a Chinese civil rights activist who works on human rights issues in rural areas of the People's Republic of China. Blind from an early age and self-taught in the law, Chen is frequently described as a "barefoot lawyer" who advocates women's rights and the welfare of the poor. He is best known for exposing alleged abuses in official family-planning policy, often involving claims of violence and forced abortions.

In 2005, he became internationally known for organizing a class-action lawsuit against the city of Linyi in Shandong for excessive enforcement of the one-child policy. As a result of this lawsuit, Chen was placed under house arrest from September 2005 to March 2006, with a formal arrest in June 2006.[1][2] During his trial, Chen's attorneys were forbidden access to the court, leaving him without a proper defender. On 24 August 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months for "damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic".

Chen was released from prison on 8 September 2010 after serving his full sentence, but remained under house arrest or "soft detention" at his home in Dongshigu Village (东师古村).[3][4] Chen and his wife were reportedly beaten shortly after a human rights group released a video of their home under intense police surveillance on 9 February 2011.[5]

Chen's case received sustained international attention, with the U.S. State Department, the British Foreign Secretary, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International issuing appeals for his release; the latter group designated him a prisoner of conscience.[6] Chen is a 2007 laureate of the Ramon Magsaysay Award and in 2006 was named to the Time 100.[7]

On 22 April 2012, Chen escaped his house arrest and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.[8][9] After negotiations with the Chinese government, he left the embassy for medical treatment on May 2, 2012.[10]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Chen hails from the small village of Dongshigu, Shandong province, approximately 200 km from the city of Jinan. Due to a severe fever, Chen lost his sight at an early age. He was illiterate until 1994 when he was enrolled by Qingdao High School for the Blind and graduated in 1998. In that time, Chen had already begun developing an interest in the law, and enlisted his brothers to read legal texts to him.[11] He then studied in Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine from 1998 to 2001, specializing in acupuncture and massage.[12] After graduation he returned to his home region and found a job as a masseur in the hospital of Yinan county.[13] Nonetheless, he managed to audit law classes, and learned enough to aid his fellow villagers when they sought his assistance.[14]

[edit] Activism

Chen's first experience petitioning authorities was in 1994, when he traveled to Beijing to appeal against taxes that were being wrongly levied on his family (disabled persons, such as Chen, are theoretically exempt from taxation and fees; his family had been taxed regardless). The appeal was successful, and thereafter Chen helped other individuals with disabilities to avoid undue taxation.[11][12] He also began organizing villagers to engage in collective action campaigns. In 2000, Chen organized villagers in his hometown and 78 others to petition against a paper mill that had been spewing noxious chemicals into a river, destroying crops and killing wildlife.[12]

Chen's most well publicized case came in 2005. Chen exposed harsh illegal measures by local authorities when enforcing the one-child policy, where family planning officials from Linyi municipal authorities in Shandong forced thousands of people to undergo sterilization or to abort pregnancies. Chinese national regulations prohibit such brutal measures. The officials were also accused of detaining and torturing relatives of people who had escaped from the forced measures.[1]

Chen filed a class-action lawsuit on the women's behalf against Linyi officials and drew attention to the plight of the villagers. He also traveled to Beijing in June 2005 to seek redress. Although the suit he filed was rejected, the incident was publicised on the Internet and by the U.S. publication Time, which interviewed Chen.[2] This prompted the National Population and Family Planning Commission to launch an investigation in August 2005. A month later, the Commission announced that several Linyi officials were detained.

[edit] Detention and trial

Chen met with foreign reporters in Beijing to publicize his lawsuit and the allegations within it that Linyi officials were engaged in compulsory sterilization, and more rarely, forced abortion.[7] Local officials responded by portraying Chen as working for "foreign anti-China forces", pointing out that he had received foreign funding for his campaign.[1] After Chen refused negotiations with local officials to cease his activism, Linyi authorities placed him under house arrest from September 2005. He attempted to escape for contacts in Beijing in October, but was beaten and held back.[2]

Chen was removed from his house in March 2006 and was formally detained in June 2006 by Yinan county officials.[2] He was scheduled to stand trial on 17 July 2006 on charges of destruction of property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic,[1] but this was delayed at the request of the prosecution.[15] According to Radio Free Asia and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, the prosecution delayed the trial because a crowd of Chen supporters gathered outside the courthouse. With only a few days' notice, authorities rescheduled Chen's trial for 18 August 2006.

On the eve of his trial, all three of his lawyers were detained by Yinan police. Two were released after being questioned and their phones confiscated. Xu Zhiyong of the Yitong Law Firm, perhaps the lawyer with the most knowledge of the forced abortion cases Chen was working on, was detained after authorities accused him of stealing a man's wallet. He was not released until the trial concluded on the 18th. None of Chen's lawyers were allowed in the courtroom for the trial. Only Chen's brothers were allowed inside. Not even Chen's wife was allowed to hear proceedings. Instead, authorities appointed their own public defender for Chen just before the trial began. As a result, the defender had not even read the case report before he walked into the courtroom. The defender did little to help his new client's case and did not raise any objection to the proceedings or to any of the evidence presented, despite Chen's protest in the court. The trial lasted just two hours.[16][17] On 24 August 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months for "damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic".[18] As a result of Chen's trial, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett selected his case for the cover of the British government's 2006 human rights report, stating concern over "the handling of Chen's case" and calling for the Chinese government "to prove its commitment to building rule of law".[19][20]

On 30 November 2006, Yinan County court upheld Chen's sentence,[21] and on 12 January 2007, the Linyi Intermediate Court in Shandong Province rejected his final appeal. The same court had overturned his original conviction in December 2006, citing lack of evidence. However, Chen was convicted in a second trial on identical charges and given an identical sentence by the Yinan court.[22] Following the trial, Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience, "jailed solely for his peaceful activities in defence of human rights".[6]

[edit] House arrest

After being released from prison in 2010, Chen was placed under house arrest, closely monitored at his home village. He and his wife, however, have attempted to communicate via video tape and written communication. The government responded by beating Chen and his wife, confiscating documents and communication devices in their possession, cutting off electric power, and installing metal sheets over the windows of their house.[23] Official harassment of Chen's family continued throughout his house arrest, including of Chen's six-year-old daughter, who was briefly banned from attending school and had her toys confiscated by guards, and of Chen's mother, who was harassed while working in the fields.[24] Authorities reportedly told Chen that they had spent 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) to keep him under house arrest.[25]

In 2011, The New York Times reported that a number of supporters and admirers had attempted to penetrate the security detail that monitors Chen's home to visit him, but had been turned away. In some instances, his supporters were pummeled, beaten, or robbed by security agents.[26] Would-be visitors included journalists, European diplomats, lawyers, and intellectuals.[26] U.S. Congressman Chris Smith attempted to visit Chen in November 2011, but was not granted permission.[27] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the U.S. government as "alarmed" by Chen's continued detention and called on China "to embrace a different path".[28] Human Rights Watch described his house arrest as "unlawful" and called on authorities to give Chen his freedom.[29] Later, supporters turned to online campaigns to support Chen.

In December 2011, actor Christian Bale attempted to visit Chen along with a CNN crew, but was punched, shoved, and denied access by dozens of Chinese security guards who failed to recognize him.[30] Bale wanted to show his solidarity with one of the most prominent human rights activists and support his cause. Bale later stated that he had wanted "to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is".[31][32] Video footage also showed Bale and the CNN crew having stones thrown at them, and a minivan then chased their car for more than 40 minutes.[30]

[edit] Escape from house arrest

On 22 April 2012, Chen escaped from house arrest where he was being held despite there being no pending charges against him.[33][34] Fellow dissident Ai Weiwei said a friend told him that Chen waited until night, climbed over his compound walls, and slipped past "multiple cordons of guards".[35] "You know he's blind, so the night to him is nothing," Ai's friend stated.[35]

Chen's friend and fellow activist Hu Jia stated that Chen had been planning escape "for a long time", and had previously attempted to dig a tunnel for escape, but failed. In the weeks leading up to his escape, Chen tried to create the impression among his guards that he was ill in bed and had stopped appearing outside the house by day, allowing him multiple days to climb over the walls around his compound before his absence was discovered.[36][37] Communicating with a network of activists via a cell phone that had been smuggled to him, Chen went over the wall around his house and past the layers of security around his village.[37] Though he was familiar with his immediate surroundings from his childhood explorations, he later passed into less familiar territory, telling his supporters that he fell more than 200 times during his escape. Twenty hours after leaving his home, he reached a pre-determined pickup point where He Peirong, an English teacher and activist, was waiting.[37][38] A chain of human rights activists then smuggled him into Beijing, where he reportedly reached the U.S. Embassy.[37] Several of the activists reported to be involved were detained or disappeared in the days following the announcement of Chen's escape.[9]

On 27 April, Chen Guangcheng's supporters announced that he was safe in Beijing at an undisclosed location.[39] Hu stated that Chen was given refuge at the U.S. Embassy, which the Embassy refused to confirm or deny.[36] According to supporters, Chen was not attempting to leave China, but was hoping to negotiate with authorities "to live like a normal Chinese citizen".[40] The New York Times described the reports that the U.S. Embassy was sheltering Chen as a "diplomatic quandary" at a time when the U.S. was seeking to improve relations with China and seeks its support with respect to crises in Iran, Sudan, Syria, and North Korea.[33] Likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called on Barack Obama's administration to "do everything it can" to protect Chen from returning to custody.[41] Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Beijing on 29 April 2012. An atmosphere of secrecy continued with the location of Chen remaining unknown.[42]

Also on 27 April, Chen posted a video to YouTube, in which he expressed his concern that the authorities would carry out "insane retribution" on his family[43] and made three demands of Premier Wen Jiabao: 1) that local officials who allegedly assaulted his family be prosecuted; 2) that his family's safety be guaranteed; and 3) that the Chinese government prosecute corruption cases under the law. Chen's brother, Chen Guangfu, and nephew, Chen Kegui, were reportedly both arrested in Dongshigu on suspicions of aiding his escape.[39] Amnesty International called on China to guarantee the safety of Chen, his family, and his friends, stating, "It is time for this shameful saga to end."[44]

The escape came only weeks after the Bo Xilai incident, in which a former Communist Party boss was removed from office in a corruption scandal, leading BBC News to describe it as "an unwelcome time for China's leaders" to face further embarrassment.[39] Within twenty-four hours, Chen's name as well as the phrases "CGC" and "the blind man" had been blocked by Chinese online censors in an effort to quell Internet discussion of the case.[45] As of 27 April, Chinese state media had not carried "a single line of news" about the escape.[46] The New York Times wrote that news of the escape "electrified China’s rights activists".[37]

[edit] Negotiations and exit from U.S. embassy

Chen (left) with Gary Locke (center) and Kurt M. Campbell (right) at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on May 1, 2012

Negotiations between U.S. State Department officials and their counterparts from the Chinese foreign ministry began on 26 April. On May 2, 2012, Chen called Washington Post reporter Keith B. Richburg in a call arranged by US Ambassador to China Gary Locke. Chen reported that he was safe and was headed to a local hospital with Locke. Chen himself asked to call the reporter. He also placed calls to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his lawyer.[47]

According to U.S. State Department officials, Chen had been sheltered by the U.S. embassy on humanitarian grounds where, with the assistance of American diplomats, he successfully negotiated with the Chinese government. On May 2, 2012, he left the embassy, was reunited with his family, and admitted to Beijing's Chaoyang Hospital for medical treatment. According to embassy representatives, the agreement provides that Chen will be freed from soft detention, relocated, and be permitted to finish his legal education at one of several law schools. An embassy representative described the Chinese negotiator as working toward a resolution "intensely and with humanity." It was not immediately clear how Chen's protection would be provided or enforced,[10] though Chinese officials did reportedly promise to investigate "extra-legal activities" of Shandong province authorities taken against Chen and his family.[48] According to U.S. officials, Chen never asked for asylum or considered leaving China. His demand was to live as a free man in China.[10] US officials said under the arrangement agreed to by the United States, China and Chen, he would be relocated to Tianjin where he would be allowed to enroll at a university to pursue his law studies. "He will have several university options," one of the officials said.[49]

Some initial reports disputed the official U.S. account of the negotiations. After Chen's departure from the U.S. embassy, Zeng Jinyan, a Chinese human rights activist and friend of Chen, cited a phone conversation she had with Chen when she issued several statements on Twitter (confirmed as authentic by The Los Angeles Times) claiming that Chen was coerced into staying in China by threats made to his family by Chinese officials, which were allegedly relayed to Chen by U.S. embassy officials.[50] These statements contradicted aspects of the account delivered shortly after Chen's departure by U.S. State Department officials, who did not mention such threats, instead reiterating that Chen had repeatedly expressed the desire to stay in China and had made the decision to leave the embassy "of his own freewill."[51] In a phone call Chen made to the Associated Press on the night of 2 May from his hospital in Beijing, he alleged that U.S. officials had relayed a message to him that Chinese officials had threatened to beat his wife to death if he did not leave the U.S. embassy. He also stated that he now wished to leave China with his family out of fear for their safety.[52][53][54]

In response to these reports, U.S. negotiators stated that they told Chen while he was in the embassy that Chinese officials had said that if Chen left China to seek asylum in the United States, his wife and daughter would probably be kept under house arrest in Shandong. However, they maintained that they had not heard of the threats from local officials that his family would be beaten, and that they had not communicated such a message to Chen. Jerome Cohen, an American law professor and friend of Chen Guangcheng who assisted in the negotiations regarding Chen's fate, suggested that Chen probably heard of these threats after leaving the embassy, arriving at the hospital, and speaking with his wife, which "might have made him regret the decision" to leave the embassy.[55] On 3 May, Chen clarified to the BBC that he had become aware of the threats against his family after leaving the U.S. Embassy, and at that point changed his mind about wishing to stay in the country.[56]

On 4 May, Beijing Daily, the main Chinese state-owned newspaper, published a story on Chen describing him as "a tool and a pawn for American politicians to blacken China".[57] A foreign ministry statement indicated that a possible compromise resolution might be that Chen would be allowed to study abroad in the United States.[58]

[edit] International recognition

In 2007, Chen Guangcheng was named one of the Time 100, Time's annual list of "100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our world". The citation stated, "He may have lost his sight as a child, but Chen Guangcheng's legal vision has helped illuminate the plight of thousands of Chinese villagers."[7]

Later that year, Chen won the Ramon Magsaysay Award while still in detention.[59] The award, often called the "Asian Nobel Prize", was bestowed for "his irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law".[60] On 24 August 2007, AIDS activist Hu Jia reported that the passport of Chen's wife Yuan Weijing had been revoked and her mobile phone confiscated by Chinese authorities at Beijing Capital International Airport on her way to attend the Magsaysay Award ceremony on her husband's behalf.[61]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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  2. ^ a b c d "Chronology of Chen Guangcheng's Case". Reuters, Human Rights Watch. 19 July 2006. http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/07/18/chronology-chen-guangchengs-case. Retrieved 26 July 2006. [dead link]
  3. ^ Andrew Jacobs; Jonathan Ansfield (17 February 2011). "China’s Intimidation of Dissidents Said to Persist After Prison". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/world/asia/19china.html. Retrieved 19 February 2011. 
  4. ^ Grammaticas, Damian (10 February 2011). "China activist Chen Guangcheng 'under house arrest'". BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12413660. 
  5. ^ Jo Ling Kent and Jaime Florcruz (11 February 2011). "Rights groups: prominent Chinese activist and wife beaten". CNN News. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/02/11/china.activists.beaten/?hpt=T2. 
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  54. ^ http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=897f4257a3e07310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=china&s=news
  55. ^ "The Chen Guangcheng Affair: U.S. Denies China Dissident’s Account of Coercion". Time. May 2, 2012. http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/02/the-chen-guangcheng-affair-u-s-denies-china-dissidents-account-of-coercion/?iid=sl-main-lede#ixzz1tkTKUNdA. 
  56. ^ "China's Chen Guangcheng 'unable to meet US officials'". BBC News. 3 May 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17938930. Retrieved 2 May 2012. 
  57. ^ Chris Buckley (4 May 2012). "China paper calls Chen a U.S. pawn; envoy is a "troublemaker"". Reuters. MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47289362#.T6Ne0utSSYk. Retrieved 4 May 2012. 
  58. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17951502
  59. ^ Carlos Conde (2 August 2007). "Ramon Magsaysay Award recipients announced". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/world/asia/02iht-phils.1.6954445.html. 
  60. ^ E.K. Santos (18 August 2007). "Blind Chinese leads way in fight for rights of poor". Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view_article.php?article_id=83275. 
  61. ^ Blanchard, Ben (24 August 2007). "China stops activist's wife leaving country". Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKPEK23857720070824. Retrieved 16 December 2011. 

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