MCLC: Chen Guangcheng leaves China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Chen Guangcheng leaves China
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (5/19/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-set-to-leave-c
hina-for-united-states.html

Blind Chinese Dissident Leaves on Flight for U.S.
By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal defender who made a dramatic
escape from house arrest and whose decision to seek refuge in the American
Embassy here jolted American-Sino relations, left China aboard a
commercial flight bound for Newark on Saturday.

Mr. Chen and his family departed around 5:30 p.m. on a United Airlines
flight after facing earlier delays. The Chens, accompanied by American
officials, were brought onto the plane shortly before takeoff and seated
In the business-class cabin. Flight attendants drew a curtain around their
seats and barred other passengers in the cabin from using the toilet while
the plane was on the runway.

In a statement, American officials obliquely praised the Chinese
government for its cooperation in resolving what had become a diplomatic
headache for both sides. “We also express our appreciation for the manner
in which we were able to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen’s
desire to study in the U.S. and pursue his goals,” Victoria Nuland, a
State Department spokeswoman said.

Speaking by cellphone before he boarded the flight, Mr. Chen told friends
he was excited to leave China but that he was also worried about the fate
of relatives left behind. “He’s happy to finally have a rest after seven
years of suffering, but he’s also worried they will suffer some
retribution,” said Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, a Christian advocacy
group in Texas that championed Mr. Chen's case
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/us/bob-fu-echoing-out-of-texas-is-a-chin
ese-voice-of-dissent.html>.

Mr. Fu, who spoke to Mr. Chen several times on Saturday, said the family
had no idea they were leaving — or where they were going — until officials
notified them to pack up their few belongings.

They were driven directly to Beijing International Airport by employees of
Chaoyang Hospital, where Mr. Chen was being treated for intestinal
problems and for the foot he broke during his escape. Mr. Chen told
friends that he and his family were handed their passports by Chinese
officials shortly before they boarded the plane.

The family waited for their flight in an area separated from other
passengers. Airline officials increased security on the flight, and
reporters were told they would not be able to speak to Mr. Chen during the
13-hour trip to Newark.

One of China’s best known dissidents, Mr. Chen, 40, made a daring escape
last month from home confinement, scaling walls and evading the dozens of
guards who were charged with keeping him and his family locked up in their
Shandong Province farmhouse.

With the help of Chinese activists, he made his way to Beijing, and three
days later, into the American diplomatic compound. During 30 hours of
tense negotiations between American and Chinese officials, Mr. Chen
rejected the idea of asylum and insisted that he wanted to stay in China —
as long as he and his family could be shielded from further persecution.
Exile, he feared, might silence his voice as an advocate for legal reform
in China.

A deal was reached, but Mr. Chen grew fearful and changed his mind in the
hours after leaving the embassy. A fresh crisis ensued — with critics
accusing the Obama administration of pressuring him to leave the compound
— and another agreement was quickly forged. The deal, announced May 4,
allowed Mr. Chen to attend New York University Law School on a fellowship.
The American Embassy bought the plane tickets but will reimbursed by New
York University, said a source with knowledge of the arrangements. An
embassy spokesman declined to comment on Saturday.

The story of Mr. Chen’s tribulations, and his unlikely escape from
draconian house arrest, has riveted much of the world, even as censors
kept the news from ordinary citizens in China.

A self-taught lawyer blinded by childhood illness, he was once toasted by
the state media for his advocacy of the disabled and the disenfranchised.
His wife, Yuan Weijing, would read aloud to him legal documents and help
with court filings.

But in 2005, he ran into trouble with the authorities by organizing a
class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of women in Shandong who had
been subjected to forced abortions and sterilizations. A year later, a
court sent him to prison for more than four years on charges that were
widely seen as spurious.

Although technically a free man after his release in September 2010, Mr.
Chen encountered a new round of restrictions. Local officials, with the
backing of provincial authorities, turned his home into a makeshift
prison, with surveillance cameras, hired thugs and cellphone jamming
equipment ensuring he was cut off from the outside world.

In a homemade video that was smuggled out of Dongshigu village last year
and posted on the Internet, the couple detailed the indignities of their
detention. Local officials responded with a vicious round of beatings that
Mr. Chen said left them with lingering injuries.

The cordon also kept out visitors, including the journalists, diplomats
and freelance Chinese activist who were violently repelled when they tried
to enter the village.

His entry into the embassy, aided by American officials who evaded
pursuing security agents, infuriated Chinese leaders, who accused
Washington of meddling in its domestic affairs. The diplomatic crisis was
compounded by a deadline: the imminent arrival of Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top officials for previously scheduled
talks in the capital.

Despite some early missteps, human rights advocates mostly lauded the
State Department for crafting a resolution that satisfied Mr. Chen and his
supporters while preventing a wider rift with Beijing. The last dissident
to seek protection in the embassy, Fang Lizhi, spent a year in the
diplomatic compound before Chinese officials agreed to let him leave for
the United States in 1990. Mr. Fang, who died last month in Arizona
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/world/asia/fang-lizhi-chinese-physicist-
and-dissident-dies-at-76.html>, never returned to China.

Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher based in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch,
offered tempered praise for the Chinese government’s handling of the
episode but said he would reserve further judgment until the day Mr. Chen
sought to return to China. “Only then would this episode register as a
significant turning point for the rights defense movement, and for U.S.
diplomacy in creating a tailored solution that is different from the model
of the past,” Mr. Bequelin said.

In the two weeks since he left the embassy, Mr. Chen has expressed concern
for relatives still at the mercy of local officials in Shandong. American
diplomats said Chinese officials rejected a list of 13 people, many of
them family members, that Mr. Chen had said he wanted protected from
harassment.

A nephew, Chen Kegui, is in police custody accused of slashing and
injuring men who broke into his family’s rural home last month in their
search for Mr. Chen. The nephew faces a possible death sentence and has
been denied access to his lawyers. His father, Chen Guangfu, has said he
was tied to a chair and beaten for three days by interrogators seeking
information on his brother’s whereabouts.

On Saturday, however, many Chinese dissidents and rights advocates were
celebrating, among them Teng Biao, a prominent rights lawyer and friend
who had advised Mr. Chen to go abroad.

“I am very happy Mr. Chen will finally have a chance at a normal life,” he
said

Edy Yin contributed reporting from United Airlines Flight 88.