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Chen Guangcheng
Chen Guangcheng at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on 1 May 2012
Born	(1971-11-12) 12 November 1971 (age 53)
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
Spouse	Yuan Weijing
Children	Chen Kerui Chen Kesi
Awards	Time 100 (2006) Ramon Magsaysay Award (2007)

Chen Guangcheng (born 12 November 1971) is a Chinese civil rights activist who worked 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 organising a class-action lawsuit against the city of Linyi in Shandong for what was claimed to be 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. 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 2010 after serving his full sentence, but remained under house arrest or "soft detention" at his home in Dongshigu Village. Chen and his wife were reportedly beaten shortly after a human rights group released a video of their home under intense police surveillance in February 2011.

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. Chen is a 2007 laureate of the Ramon Magsaysay Award and in 2006 was named to the Time 100.

In April 2012, Chen escaped his house arrest and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. After negotiations with the Chinese government, he left the embassy for medical treatment on early May 2012, and it was reported that China would consider allowing him to travel to the United States to study. On 19 May 2012, Chen, his wife, and his two children were granted U.S. visas and departed Beijing for New York City.

Biography

Early life

Chen is the youngest of five brothers of a peasant family from the village of Dongshigu, Yinan County, Shandong Province, approximately 200 km from the city of Jinan. When Chen was about six months old, he lost his sight due to a fever that destroyed his optical nerves. In an interview with Ian Johnson for the New York Review of Books, Chen said that although his family did not identify with an organized religion, his upbringing was informed by a “traditional belief in virtue that’s present in Chinese culture—that might have some Buddhist content, but not necessarily that one believes in Buddhism.” His village was poor, with many families living at a subsistence level. “When I went to school I’d be happy if I just got enough to eat,” he recalled.

Chen's father worked as an instructor at a Communist Party school, earning the equivalent of about $60 annually. When Chen was a child, his father would read literary works aloud to him, and reportedly helped impart to his son an appreciation of the values of democracy and freedom. In 1991, Chen's father gave him a copy of "The Law Protecting the Disabled," which elaborated on the legal rights and protections in place for disabled persons in the PRC.

In 1989, at the age of 18, Chen began attending school as a grade one student at the Elementary School for the Blind in Linyi city. In 1994, he enrolled at the Qingdao High School for the Blind, from which he graduated in 1998. He had already begun developing an interest in law, and would often ask his brothers to read legal texts to him. Although his family was poor, he earned a position at the Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1998. His family borrowed $340 to cover tuition costs, falling short of the required $400. University authorities reportedly had to be pleaded with before allowing Chen to enroll. He studied in Nanjing from 1998 to 2001, specializing in acupuncture and massage—the only programs available to the blind. Chen also audited legal courses, gaining a sufficient understanding of the law to allow him to aid his fellow villagers when they sought his assistance. After graduation he returned to his home region and found a job as a masseur in the hospital of Yinan County.

Activism

Chen's first recorded instance of petitioning authorities was in 1996, when he traveled to Beijing to complain about taxes that were being incorrectly levied on his family (people with disabilities, such as Chen, are supposed to be exempt from taxation and fees). The complaint was successful, and Chen began engaging in similar activities for other individuals with disabilities. With funding from a British foundation, Chen became an outspoken activist for disability rights within the China Law Society. His reputation as a disability rights advocate was solidified when he took on the case of an elderly blind couple whose grandchildren suffered from paralysis. The family had been paying all of the regular taxes and fees, but Chen believed that, under the law, the family should have received government assistance and exemption from taxation. When the case went to court, blind citizens from surrounding counties were in attendance as a show of solidarity. The case was successful, and word of the outcome spread widely.

In 1997, the leaders of Chen's village began implementing a land use plan that gave authorities control over 60 percent of land, which they then rented out at high cost to the villages. The plan, known as the "two-field system," was a major source of enrichment for the local government. While studying in Nanjing the following year, however, Chen learned that the program was illegal, and he petitioned central authorities in Beijing to end the program, thereby irritating local officials.

In 2000, Chen returned from his studies in Nanjing to his village of Dongshigu in order to take on environmental pollution. A paper mill constructed in 1988 had been dumping toxic wastewater into the Meng river, destroying crops and harming wildlife. The chemicals also reportedly caused skin and digestive problems among villagers living downstream from the mill. Chen organized villagers in his hometown and 78 other villages to petition against the mill. The effort was successful, and resulted in the suspension of the paper mill. In addition, Chen contacted the British embassy in Beijing informing it of the situation, and requesting funding for a well to supply clean water to locals. The British government responded by providing £15,000 towards a deep water well, irrigation systems and water pipelines.

In March of 2004, more than 300 residents from Chen's village of Dongshigu filed a petition to the village government demanding that they release the village accounts and address the issue of illegal land requisitions. When village authorities failed to respond, villagers escalated their appeals to the township, county and municipal governments, still without response. Village authorities then began to publicly threaten villagers. In November of 2004, Chen acted on behalf of villagers to file a lawsuit in the Qi'nan County Court of Qi’nan against the local Public Security Bureau for negligence. The case was accepted, and proceedings began in early 2005.

The issue in question was an open letter co-signed by more than 300 residents of DongshiguVillage in March 2004 requesting the village committee to open the village accounts, which hadn’t been made public for more than 10 years, and to address allegations of unlawful land seizures.

In 2005, Chen spent several months surveying residents of Shandong Province, collecting accounts of forced, late-term abortions and forced sterilization of women who stood in violation of China’s one-child policy. His survey was based in Linyi, a city of ten million about 400 miles southeast of Beijing, and included surrounding rural suburbs. Chen later recalled that his survey would have been significantly larger in scope were he not limited by a lack of financial resources.

Since the 1990s, Chinese central authorities have sought to curb the coercive enforcement of the one-child policy, replacing measures such as forced abortions and sterilizations with a system of financial incentives and fines. However, Chen found that coercive practices remained widespread, and documented numerous of cases of abuse. One of the women he interviewed in Maxiagou village was 36-year-old Feng Zhongxia. Feng said that local officials detained and beat her relatives, and indicated they would not be released until she turned herself in and submitted to a forced abortion. She said she was later subjected to forced sterilization. Chen also solicited the help of prominent legal scholar Teng Biao. After conducting his own interviews in Linyi, Teng and Chen released a report claiming that an estimated 130,000 residents in the city had been forced into 'study sessions' for refusing abortions or violating the one-child policy; residents would be held for days or weeks in the study sessions, and were allegedly beaten.

In 2005, Chen filed a class-action lawsuit on the behalf of women from Linyi against the city's family planning staff. In June 2005, he traveled to Beijing to file the complaint and meet with foreign reporters to publicize the case. Although there had been prior instances of Chinese citizens filing complaints about abuses under the one-child policy, Chen’s initiative was the first class-action lawsuit to challenge the implementation of the policy. Although the suit he filed was rejected, the case garnered international media attention. Responding to questions about Chen’s allegation, a senior official with the National Population and Family Planning Commission told the Washington Post that the practice of forced abortions and sterilizations was “definitely illegal,” and indicated that the complaints were being investigated. “If the Linyi complaints are true, or even partly true, it's because local officials do not understand the new demands of the Chinese leadership regarding family planning work,” said the official. In September 2005, the Commission announced that several Linyi officials had been detained. But local authorities in Linyi retaliated against Chen, placing him under house arrest in September 2005 and embarking on a campaign to undermine his reputation; the Linyi officials portrayed him as working for "foreign anti-China forces", pointing out that he had received foreign funding for his advocacy on behalf of the disabled.

Detention and trial

On 7 September 2005, while Chen was in Beijing to publicize his class action lawsuit against the Linyi city family planning staff, he was reportedly "kidnapped" by security agents from Linyi and held for 38 hours. In recounting the incident to foreign journalists, Chen says that authorities threatened to levy criminal charges against him for providing state secrets or intelligence to foreign organizations. After Chen refused negotiations with local officials to cease his activism, Linyi authorities placed him under effective house arrest from September 2005. When he attempted to escape in October, he was beaten.

Chen was removed from his house in March 2006 and was formally detained in June 2006 by Yinan county officials. He was scheduled to stand trial on 17 July 2006 on charges of destruction of property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic, but this was delayed at the request of the prosecution. 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, including Xu Zhiyong of the Yitong Law Firm, were detained by Yinan police, two were released after being questioned. Neither Chen's lawyers nor his wife, were allowed in the courtroom for the trial. Authorities appointed their own public defender for Chen just before the trial began.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). The trial lasted two hours. On 24 August 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months for "damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic". 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."

On 30 November 2006, Yinan County court upheld Chen's sentence, 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. Following the trial, Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience, "jailed solely for his peaceful activities in defence of human rights".

House arrest

After being released from prison in 2010, Chen was placed under house arrest (what he described as "illegal detention") closely monitored at his home village. However, he and his wife, attempted to communicate with the outside world via video tape and letters. Letters described beatings against Chen and his wife, the taking away of documents and communication devices, cutting off electric power to their residence, and placing metal sheets over the windows of their house. 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. Authorities reportedly told Chen that they had spent 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) to keep him under house arrest.

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. U.S. Congressman Chris Smith attempted to visit Chen in November 2011, but was not granted permission. 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". Human Rights Watch described his house arrest as "unlawful" and called on authorities give Chen his freedom.

In December 2011, actor Christian Bale attempted to visit Chen along with a CNN crew, but was punched, shoved, and denied access by Chinese security guards. Bale later stated that he had wanted "to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is". 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.

Escape from house arrest

On 22 April 2012, Chen escaped from house arrest. Chen's 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. 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 serveral days before his absence might be discovered. With the help of his wife, Chen went over the wall around his house; he broke his foot when he landed on the other side.

When he encountered the Meng River, he took the risk of crossing a guarded bridge, but was not stopped; he later stated that he believed the guards had been asleep. Though he was familiar with his immediate surroundings from his childhood explorations, he eventually passed into less familiar territory, later telling his supporters that he fell more than 200 times during his escape. Communicating with a network of activists via a cell phone, he reached a pre-determined pickup point where He Peirong, an English teacher and activist, was waiting. A chain of human rights activists then smuggled him into Beijing. Several of the activists reported to be involved were detained or disappeared in the days following the announcement of Chen's escape.

Hu stated that Chen was given refuge at the U.S. Embassy, which the Embassy refused to confirm or deny. 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. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called on Barack Obama's administration to "do everything it can" to protect Chen from returning to custody. Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Beijing on 29 April. An atmosphere of secrecy continued with the location of Chen remaining unknown.

27 April, Chen appeared in an internet video, in which he expressed his concern that the authorities would carry out "insane retribution" on his family 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.

BBC News described Chen's escape as "an unwelcome time for China's leaders" to face further embarrassment following the incident that resulted in removal of politburo member Bo Xilai amidst a corruption scandal. 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. On the day Chen announced his escape, Chinese state media did not carry "a single line of news" referring to it. The New York Times wrote that news of the escape "electrified China’s rights activists".

Negotiations and exit from U.S. embassy

After several days of media speculation into his whereabouts, Chen was confirmed to have been under U.S diplomatic protection on May 2.

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 2 May, 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 provided that Chen would be freed from soft detention, relocated, and be permitted to finish his legal education at one of several law schools. though Chinese officials did reportedly promise to investigate "extra-legal activities" of Shandong province authorities taken against Chen and his family. 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.

In response to rumours on Twitter that Chen was coerced into leaving the embassy by threats made to his family by Chinese officials, U.S. negotiators stated that they told Chen while he was in the embassy that Chinese officials had said that if he 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. 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.

On 2 May, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Liu Weimin, stated that China demands that the US apologizes for the Chen incident, investigates its acts and never interferes in China's domestic matters in such way again. In an editorial on 4 May, Beijing Daily described Chen as "a tool and a pawn for American politicians to blacken China". The daily also accused US Ambassador Gary Locke of stirring up trouble by taking in Chen, and questioned Locke's motives. However, on the 4th May a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson indicated that, if Chen wished to study abroad, "he can apply through normal channels to the relevant departments in accordance with the law, just like any other Chinese citizen." On the same day, he was offered a visiting scholar position at New York University. On 19 May, Chen, his wife, and his two children had been granted U.S. visas and departed Beijing on a commercial flight for Newark, New Jersey.

In America

Following his arrival in the United States, Chen, his wife, and the couple's two children settled in a housing complex for students and faculty of New York University, located in Greenwich Village. He reportedly began studying English for two hours per day, in addition to having regular meetings with American legal scholars. Chen is in the process of authoring a memoir, which is expected to be published in fall 2013.

On 29 May, Chen published an editorial in the New York Times criticizing the Chinese government and the Communist Party for the "lawless punishment inflicted on me and my family over the past seven years." He added in the article that the Chinese government has failed to live up to its human rights commitments, and that the fundamental question it faces is "lawlessness". He said that "those who handled my case were able to openly flout the nation’s laws in many ways for many years". In the editorial, Chen also criticized the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CCP, which he said transformed law enforcement powers into "a single, unchallengeable weapon".

International recognition

Chen began attracting international media attention for his civil rights activism in the early 2000s. In March 2002, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story on Chen and the "barefoot lawyer" movement in China, detailing his advocacy on behalf of villagers and the disabled. His profile rose further in 2005 when he filed a landmark class-action suit taking on abuses of the one-child policy. 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."

Later that year, Chen won the Ramon Magsaysay Award while still in detention. 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". 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.

The National Endowment for Democracy honored Chen with the 2008 Democracy Award. Chen was one of seven Chinese lawyers and civil rights activists to be named as recipients of the award.

In 2012, Chen was chosen as the recipient of the Human Rights Award from the New york-based NGO Human Rights First. In explaining the choice, the organization's president Elisa Massimino stated "Mr. Chen’s activism has reignited an international conversation about the need to protect human rights lawyers around the world who face great danger for their courageous work."

Family

Chen was born the youngest of five brothers in the rural village of Dongshigu, Shandong province. Chen met his wife, Yuan Weijing, in 2001. Yuan had graduated from the foreign language department of Shandong's Chemistry Institute, and in the spring of 2001, she called in to a talk radio program to discuss her difficulty in landing a job. Chen, who listened to the program, later contacted Yuan and relayed his own story of hardship as a blind man living on just 400 Yuan per year. Yuan was moved by the exchange, and later that year, she traveled to Chen's village to meet him. The couple eloped in 2003. Their son, Chen Kerui, was born later that year. In 2005 they had a second child—a daughter name Chen Kesi—in violation of China's one-child policy. Yuan, who had been working as an English teacher at the time of the marriage, left her job in 2003 in order to assist her husband in his legal work.

Before leaving China in the spring of 2012, Chen Guangcheng expressed concern that his relatives and other activists who had helped him evade capture would be punished by Chinese officials after his departure. On 24 May, it was reported that his brother, Chen Guangfu, had escaped to Beijing from his guarded village to advocate on behalf of his son, who had been in police custody since he attempted to stab a group of plainclothes officers who had broken into the family home.

See also

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• Fang Lizhi
• Weiquan movement

References

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2. ^ Ian Johnson, ‘Pressure for Change is at the Grassroots’: An Interview with Chen Guangcheng', New York Review of Books, 20 June 2012.
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64. Chen Guangcheng (29 May 2012). "How China Flouts Its Laws". New York Times. Retrieved 7 June 2012.
65. Carlos Conde (2 August 2007). "Ramon Magsaysay Award recipients announced". The New York Times.
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72. Andrew Jacobs (24 May 2012). "Brother of Chinese Dissident Escapes Guarded Village". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 May 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

• [REDACTED] Media related to Chen Guangcheng at Wikimedia Commons
• Chen Guangcheng collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Chen Guangcheng collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• "How China Flouts Its Laws" opinion by Chen Guangcheng in The New York Times May 29, 2012
• ‘Pressure for Change is at the Grassroots’: An Interview with Chen Guangcheng', New York Review of Books, 20 June 2012.

Template:Persondata

• Use dmy dates from May 2012
• 1971 births
• Amnesty International prisoners of conscience
• Blind people from China
• Chinese emigrants to the United States
• Chinese expatriates in the United States
• Chinese human rights activists
• Chinese democracy activists
• Chinese lawyers
• Chinese prisoners and detainees
• Living people
• Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China
• Weiquan movement
• Abortion in China
• Forced abortion