No Evidence To Support Chen Guangcheng’s “Beating” Claims

At the outset, Chen seemed to be just another Chinese dissident brutally treated by the authorities; however, there is more to it.

In the opening statement at the Council on Foreign Relations (31 May, 2012), Professor Cohen of New York University made it clear that Chen “had never studied law” when “the State Department” asked him to meet Chen nine years ago (that is, in 2003).

Despite such an open piece of information linking Chen to the “State Department” in a forum that was packed with journalists, I only managed to find the full content of Cohen’s opening statement via YouTube, theCouncil on Foreign Relations and NYU websites.

Amazingly, as far as my research is concerned, none of the news media during and after the forum appear to show any interest in persuading or reporting the relationship between the State Department and Chen. Just a few examples (none of these media report a thing on the content of Cohen’s opening statement):

The NY Daily News, The Daily Beast, USA Today, Time, VOA, WNYC, NBC New York and Radio Free Asia. [Note: simply Google “Chen Guangcheng address Council on Foreign Relations” to find more examples].

Interestingly, while Chen has never being a lawyer, soon after the public forum at the Council on Foreign Relations, many journalists and writers continued to call Chen the ‘blind lawyer’, ‘bare-foot lawyer’ or ‘self-taught lawyer’. Such misinformation is so widespread that an article in the Ethnics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (12 June) went to the extent of calling Chen the “Blind Attorney.”

In short, the news media appears to have reached some kind of unspoken understanding on what to say and what not to say about Chen. We could perhaps call this an ‘inter-media agenda setting’. As a result, I have noticed that there are more than a dozen of contradictory and murky stories on how Chen “escaped” from his village without any mainstream media making any effort to clarify the facts.

I believe that below is another area of Chen’s story that lacks credibility.

The brutal “beating” of Chen and his wife – How true are the claims?

In the YouTube video released after his “escape”, Chen has a detailed account on how he and his wife were being beaten up in his own home. The translation by the Shanghai List and a Chinese blogger would probably be the only two comprehensive transcripts one could find on the internet. Both transcripts omitted certain minor details, so I will extract the appropriate part from each and add a few words of my own in “bold” to form a complete translation. The following is what Chen says about the beating:

“Some 70 to 80 officials “entered my home”, none of them were wearing uniforms, beat my family without any legal approvals and forbid my family from seeking medical assistance despites injuries … more than a dozen men assaulted my wife. They pinned her down and wrapped her in blanket, beating and kicking her for several hours. They did the same to me … My wife’s orbital bone was broken, you could feel it … you could still feel obvious protuberance on her 5^th lumbar and her sacrum. Her 10^th and 12^th ribs also have feel-able protuberance.”

The Washington Post (28 April) reported the YouTube video with a hyperlink but without a transcript to the video, and without mentioning the number of people involved in the beating and the duration of the beating. This is how Washington Post describes the beating: “He (Chen) detailed beatings that had been inflicted on him and his wife, injuring his wife’s back, ribs, elbow and eye, while being denied medical care.”

The Reuters (27 April) quoted a statement from He Peirong, another Chinese dissident: “Chen is passing blood and is very weak” and that “They broke some of his wife’s bones which have yet to heal.”

The Democracy Digest (27 April) quoted a statement made by Phelim Kine, Senior Asia Researcher at the Human Right Watch: “Chen has been in extremely poor health due to severe multiple beatings by his captors.”

The US government funded Radio Free Asia alleged that Chen suffered “20 months of beatings and house arrest”.

[Note:  To find more incredible reports on how Chen and his wife been beaten by authorities, simply Google “Chen and wife beaten by authority”.]

When Chen left the US embassy to the hospital, the initial statement made by the embassy is for Chen to treat hisfoot injury (The Telegraph, 2 May). A few days later the Foreign Policy (7 May) claimed that: Chen is known to suffer from “chronic gastroenteritis”, which he “developed during his months in Chinese jail”.  An American doctor in the embassy noted that Chen “was found to be bleeding profusely from his rectum” and suspected he could have advanced colon cancer,” forcing the Americans to “transfer Chen to a hospital” quickly.

The irony is, given the severity of Chen and his wife’s “brutal” treatments by the Chinese authorities and their poor state of health, it is hard to understand why  there wasn’t any arrangement for Chen and his wife to visit a US hospital for an examination with at least an X-ray of his wife’s fractured bones when they arrived at the U.S..

Contrary to the reports in regards to Chen’s  health, Chen’s activities since leaving the US embassy tell otherwise – Chen was not only healthy but energetic:

He spoke to the Washington Post while on his way to the hospital in the embassy van; he reportedly also spoke to Mrs Clinton which he said: “I want to kiss you”; he accepted the Congressional Hearing while in the hospital in Beijing; within days of arriving in the US, he received exclusive interview by individual media such as the CNN andNYR; Chen has again spoken to the Congressional Hearing for the second time in less than two weeks; he faced media in a public forum such as the Council on Foreign Relation; he was reportedly negotiating a book deal through Robert Barnett, a Washington attorney whose clients includes President Obama and Mrs. Clinton. In fact, believe it or not, Chen answer qestions through a spokesman.

Chen spoke a lot since he left the US embassy in Beijing. He repeatedly spoke about his cousin being tortured orbeaten up after his “escape”. However, in an interview with CNN five days after arriving the U.S., Chen declined to reveal details about what happened during his four years of imprisonment from 2006 for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic”. Chen also declined to describe the periodic beatings he says he and his wife endured during 18 months of detention in their village. Chen told CNN: “I don’t want to talk about it right now … Let’s just say that my suffering was beyond imagination.”

Perhaps, Chen’s trusted adviser – Prof. Cohen, who “spoke to Chen multiple times” while Chen is in the US embassy comments about Chen on the Morning Sun on 21^st May means something: Chen is in “admirable shape.”

Have a look at the photo of Chen and Hu Jia on the Guardian (27 April) released by Hu Jia to the world after he help Chen to produce his YouTube Video. Is there any sign of a poor health Chen, or a stressful Hu Jia?

If the Chinese authorities were so brutal in their treatment of these dissidents, would both of them still be able to appear so relaxed in the photo?

According to the US funded – Reporter Without Border  (27 June, 2011) and the New York Times (28 April, 2012), Hu Jia has been “under constant surveillance.” However, like Chen “escape”, Hu appears to be able to move around and meet Chen at will, and then produced and upload the Chen’s video on YouTube.

In fact, while the New York Times reported on the 28^th of April that Hu Jia and others who involved in helping Chen escaped are “now at risk”.  On the 9^th of July, Hu Jia has apparently again managed to “slip through” security surveillance and meet with some petitioners and produces another video on the internet.

Conclusion

Again, we have to ask ourselves: “Can we trust the media?”

Footnote:

The truth is, Chen is not a simple dissident. Cohen short opening statement at the Council on Foreign Relation had given away a series of important information. This is exactly what Cohen said:

“It was just nine years ago this week that I met Mr. Chen and Mrs. Chen here. I told the State — I told the State Department people I was too busy to meet them. This man had never studied law. I hadn’t finished grading my exams. I had to go to China. But they said, this is somebody you’re going to want to meet. So I said, half an hour only. And we ended up talking about four hours and became good friends. And later in the year when I went to China, he came up to Beijing, the Tsinghua Law School, then he invited my wife and me down to their humble village in Shandong province. It was an enlightening experience, and we have been friends since, although for seven years until May 19th, we hadn’t seen each other.”

From the above statement, we now know that:

1) Cohen, a 72 year old professor (at the time) met Chen in person two times in 2003: first time in the US in May for four hours through the arrangement of the State Department; second meeting in China in later part of 2003;

2) Since then, Cohen hadn’t seen Chen in person for 7 years till 19 May, 2012. That means, Cohen continued to see Chen between 2004 and the first five months of 2005.

The questions are:

• Who sponsored Chen to the United State?
• Besides the arrangement by the State department to meet with Cohen, who else did the state department arranged Chen to meet while he was in the US? For what purpose?
• Who set Chen agenda in China since 2003?
• What did Chen do before 2003 that attracted the State Department interest in him?
• Why are the mainstream media so reluctant to tell Chen story before 2005?
• Is Chen a dissident?

Unfortunately, we can only leave these for next time.

Evidence Suggests That Chen Guangcheng’s Wasn’t Under House Arrest At Time Of ‘Escape’

16 escape stories with only one that makes sense

The blind Chinese dissident, Chen Guangcheng has finally “escaped” the “brutal” treatment of the Chinese “regime” and landed in the “free” world. The world – in particular the American media – called this a human rights win for America.

While a million American students are reportedly homeless, Chen and his family of four were given two apartments for free: one for his personal security, the other at the “ideally located (but expensive)” graduate residence hall in Washington Square Village.

While 48% of American students are burdened by debt, Chen and his family are enjoying free education in the US: Chen isreportedly having two hours of English lessons in the morning, and he “spends many afternoons meeting legal experts one on one.”

While the American Congress is in a political grid-lock most of the time with no solution to the $16 trillion debt, both sides of the political divide appear to unite in welcoming Chen and his family to their activities in the US. No wonder Chen is having a good laugh the moment he “touches down in US” (see this picture of Chen’s joy).

A columnist in the Toronto’s Globe and Mail watching Chen’s saga from a distance believes that Chen has managed to “leverage the propaganda possibilities into free emigration.”

Is the perception of the Canadian columnist accurate? I decided to investigate.

The draconian security surrounding his home – In Chen’s own words:

Chen may be blind and isolated, but he appears to know the exact details of the kind of security surrounding his remote village of less than 500 villagers. This is how he describes the security in his YouTube message to Premier Wen – the following is a direct extract from the transcript used by most non-Chinese speaking media to understand the YouTube message:

“Starting with my home, they station a team inside the house and another one outside guarding the four corners. Further out, they block every road leading to my house, all the way to the village entrance. They even have 7 to 8 people guarding bridges in neighboring villages. These corrupt officials draw people from neighboring villages into this and they have cars patrolling areas within a 5-kilometer radius of my village or even further.”

“Besides all these layers of security around my house — I think there are 7 to 8 layers — they have also numbered all the roads leading to my village, going up to 28 with guards assigned to them daily. The whole situation is just so over the top. I understand the number of officials and policemen who participate in my persecution adds up to some 100 people.”

The evolution of Chen “Escape” story

Despite 7 to 8 rings of security, Chen had successfully “escaped” and landed in the US embassy in Beijing, 398 miles/641 Km from where he lived. The following are just some of his escape stories – each has became more and more astonishing and murky as the days pass. This is why I called it “the evolution” of Chen’s “escape” stories:

Escape story told by Hu Jia (a dissident who is supposed to be “under close surveillance”, according to the US funded – Reporter Without Border  on 27 June, 2011, and the New York Times on 28 April, 2012):

Please click on the The Guardian (27 April 2012) to view the photo of Hu Jia and Chen taken at an undisclosed location in April.  Please note how relax they are before reading the 16 escape stories:

Escape Story 1

This is the BBC (27 April) report: “Hu Jia said … Chen had “planned this escape for a long time, he even attempted to dig a tunnel to escape … That failed and this time he tried not to appear in the day time to create the impression for the guards that he never appears in the day. So that won him time, a few days, to climb over all the walls. So he planned this for a long time and made sure the guards had no idea… a night-time escape was not a problem for a blind man, but “of course he did fall a few times…”

[Note: “fall a few times” and “a few days to climb over all the walls”]

Escape Story 2

The US funded  Radio Free Asia (30 April) report: “Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia … said he heard first-hand the dramatic tale of Chen’s escape from the family home in Dongshigu village, which was guarded round-the-clock by hundreds of officials and hired security guards … In the small hours of April 21, Chen managed to scale a high wall surrounding his residential compound, dropping down the other side, with little idea of its height, or what was at the bottom … He jumped from a high wall in the dead of night and injured his leg … The whole process was extremely painful for him, and he nearly gave up … But he stuck it out, and kept going, in such circumstances … He probably fell over around 200 times … According to [Chen’s] memory, it took around 20 hours for him to get away from danger and to meet up with the volunteers [who helped him] … Chen was soaked from head to foot and his clothes torn when he met the two activists who had come to take him to safety.”

[Note: “fell over 200 times” and “20 hours to get away”]

Escape Story 3

The Economist (2 May) report: “Hu Jia, … who met Mr Chen after his escape, says that during the night Mr Chen climbed over the two-metre high concrete wall built by the government to seal off his house. (The house was normally floodlit by his guards, who also jammed mobile-phone signals.) For some 20 hours, says Mr Hu, Mr Chen struggled on his own, navigating “eight lines of defence” and falling down “more than 200 times” before meeting another activist, He Peirong.”

[Note: “two meter wall built by government” and “jammed mobile phone signals”]

Escape Story 4

This is how the Guardian (27 April) described Chen’s escape without citing any source: “Chen Guangcheng was said to have fled under cover of darkness, evading eight checkpoints and close to 100 guards who have been watching his home in the Shandong province countryside”.

Escape story told by He Peirong  (a dissident who claimed to help Chen escape) – the evolution begins here:

Escape Story 5

This is the NBC News (27 April) report: “He Peirong told Britain’s Times newspaper that Chen had planned the escape for months. She said Chen climbed over a wall while a guard wasn’t paying attention, crossed a river, and then managed to meet a friend who picked him up and drove him to Beijing.”

Escape Story 6

This is the Telegraph (28 April) report: “He Peirong said that Mr Chen had tricked his guards by escaping as they fetched a glass of water, climbing over the wall surrounding his house without help. He then walked for hours to get away from the village. When he contacted Ms He the blind dissident was hidden in a safe house. The group did not communicate with anybody for several days so they could not be traced.”

Escape Story 7

The Mail Online UK (7 May) report: “He Peirong said she had received a surprise email from a source which read: ‘The bird has left the cage. What do we do? … ‘I understand. I’m in Beijing,’ He replied … By midnight the next day she had driven for six hours by car and arrived at the outskirts of Linyi city in Shandong. She was accompanied by Guo … She was adamant that Chen planned the escape all himself, although it is difficult to conceive how a blind man could plan such a complicated sequence of events alone … There was no predetermined pickup point in Shandong, according to He, and when she and the others arrived, they searched for him for two hours … Six people were involved in helping Chen after they learnt he had escaped … more than one car took part.”

Escape Story 8

On the same day (7 May), The Independent (UK) had this report: “When Ms He was told Mr Chen had escaped, she drove for 20 hours to meet him, convincing the guards around Linyi to let her past … Having picked him up, she drove him the eight-hour, 450km journey to a safe haven in Beijing … she has refused to discuss the escape further, only adding praise for Mr Chen’s efforts. It is believed Mr Chen feigned serious illness for months before his escape, so that the guards would relax their watch over him and his home … When I got a call from him in the early morning of 23 April, he was already out of Linyi. Then I drove him to Beijing, and I left,” Ms He said.”

[Note 1: This report contains confusing and contradictory statements from He Peirong. At the beginning of the report, Ms. He claimed the guards let her past, and later claimed that Chen was already out of Linyi;

Note 2: The interesting issue is, the New York Times reported on the 18 October, 2011 that “He Peirong, 40, a rights advocate from Nanjing who has made the trip to Shandong four times (trying to visit Chen) — each resulting in beatings.” Therefore, the initial story of the guard letting her past was rather contradictory to her story to the New York Times in 2011.

Note 3: It fascinates me that how the Independent UK was able to produce this kind of report without trying to clarify with Ms He, her contradictory statements about the rescue.]

Escape Story 9

The US government funded Falun Gong media, the Epoch Times (8 May) report: “Ms. He revealed that it took nearly a year to plan the rescue and that after Chen escaped from Dongshigu village in Shandong Province, she received an email from Chen’s family saying: “The bird has left the cage,” Ms He then picked Chen up and drove him to Beijing … “His escape was entirely his own effort,” said Ms He. “Chen was completely on his own for the first 17 hours and nobody was there to help him … At one point Chen hid in a pigsty and sometimes in farm fields. He also climbed many walls. Chen had nothing to eat or drink. This is a Shawshank Redemption-style flight … The rescue operation suffered some setbacks, including a flat tire, taking the wrong route, not finding Chen, and even losing Chen at one point,” Ms. He said in another interview with Voice of America (VOA).”

Escape Story told by Bob Fu (founder of the US government funded ChinaAid who also claimed to help Chen escape):

Escape Story 10

ABC News (30 April) report: “Bob Fu, the founder of ChinaAid, which aided Chen in his getaway, called the escape an “extraordinary adventure” … “He walked for hours from his own home in the middle of the night. He was wounded, wet, covered in mud. He swam across a river,” Fu told ABC News … Fu says it was darkness that gave Chen, who has been blind since childhood, his advantage … “[He] has an amazing sense of hearing,” he said. “I think he could really literally feel the direction of the river and the main road and, of course, he was raised in that town and village,”…  Chen was picked up by supporters and driven to Beijing on April 23. Several friends hid him in different locations until his last host was able to reach out to the U.S. embassy in Beijing on April 27, Fu said.”

Escape Story told by Guo Yushan (another dissident who claimed to help Chen escape):

Escape Story 11

Huffington Post (30 April) report: ““Chen Guangcheng’s escape was a miracle, hard to believe unless you heard him tell the story himself,” said Guo Yushan, a Beijing-based researcher and rights advocate who has campaigned for Chen and helped bring him to Beijing after his escape … He was speaking in his first long interview since he was released from days of police questioning after Chen’s escape became public … “He had to climb over eight walls and over a dozen barriers by himself, tripping and falling hundreds of times for 19 hours until he crossed a stream and finally escaped from his village,” said Guo, citing Chen’s account of how he fled his home Dongshigu Village in Shandong province in eastern China … “His whole body was cut and bruised from all his climbing and tripping. His right foot strained so he could barely stand,” said Guo. “By the end, he could only crawl for a long stretch, so when I saw him he looked in a really sorry state.”

Ai Weiwei and Chai Ling

Escape Story 12

Believe it or not, Ai Weiwei and Chai Ling also have a say on Chen’s story. Read it yourself: Ai Weiwei and Chai Ling.

[Note: Chai Ling, a 1989 US funded dissident whom recently sued by her employee, another dissident (Zhang Jing) for forcing her to attain a daily, two hours prayer and bible study; when Zhang refused, Chai Ling sacked her (Courthouse News Service, 19 June 2012].

More Escape stories

As one may observe from all the above contradictory and increasingly sophisticated escape stories reported by the news media, through the name of the people who told the stories, it is not hard to notice that, the main sources of the rumour are exclusively from Chen himself and the other so-called “Chinese dissidents”.  Many of these people virtually have no other career, except being full time dissidents. However, they all appear to live well with car, cell phone, email and Skype.

If one traces these dissidents’ histories and compares their stories over a period of time, one will easily notice that, they may be living hundreds or even more than a thousand of kilometres apart, somehow, they manage to get to know each other, and then come together and promote each other stories from time to time. All of their stories appear to be under a standard script of being brutally beaten up, being under house arrest, being missing for hours or days, being isolated from the rest of the world, being under strict surveillance, poor health … etc.  But, they all have direct contact with Western journalists and editors, and are able to physically helping each other up times and again, and are able to communicate their stories worldwide, including messaging through their personal micro blog, and the use of email, Skype and cell phone as and when needed despite of the on-going claim of being “jammed” and “isolated”.

Escape Story 13

The news media were totally uncritical to any of these people stories despite the murky detail.  For example, theNew York Times did notice the murky nature of Chen’s escape stories. This is the statement they made at the beginning of their report on the 28^th of April: “Many details of the escape remain murky…”

From there on, the New York Times begins telling the escape story without quoting any specific name: “but supporters say Mr. Chen may have been aided by a sympathetic guard. They also say that the night before his escape, he was able to discuss his plans with supporters via cell phone — a remarkable detail given how hard the guards had worked to keep him isolated … Friends said Mr. Chen’s subterfuge was months in the making. In recent weeks, they said, he stayed in bed continuously to convince his minders that he was too weak to walk, or to try to leave … As part of the plan, his wife stayed behind to distract the guards stationed outside the front door … After he scaled the wall outside his home, he hid somewhere before making his way to a predetermined pickup spot almost a day after leaving home. It was then that He Peirong, a rights activist from Nanjing, arrived in her car and drove Mr. Chen to Beijing, according to the account she posted on her microblog account.”

[Note: This kind of story telling technique is totally identical to the examples I produced in my previous article onHow Rumour Journalism Works?]

Escape Story 14

In Australia, The Age (20 May) reproduces an AFP report with another line of story: “Earlier this month Chen gave AFP a gripping account of his escape, describing how his wife had pushed him over the wall around their small home. He broke his foot when landing, but scrambled to a neighbour’s pig sty, where he hid until nightfall. After a long and painful journey through fields and over walls, he made his way to a friend’s home, then to the US embassy.”

Escape Story 15

If one thinks that all the above astonishing escape stories are about it, keep your breath for now. Like the New York Times, the BBC also realised their previous reports were Murky (see above ‘Escape Story 1’ as an example). This is how BBC puts it on the 18^th of May: “Just how did the blind Chen manage to evade dozens of guards stationed in rings around his home and village of Dongshigu? This part of the story has remained murky.”

Instead of contacting Chen directly for an answer, BBC continues to prefer the use of third and forth party rumour journalism. This time, BBC cited the account of a reporter from iSun Affairs. The problem is, when you click on the hyperlink on the term “iSun Affairs”, the result is: “The page you are finding seem doesn’t exist.” Anyway, the following is an extract from the new version of BBC escape story:

“Quickly he crept into a neighbour’s pigsty. The magazine says he’d already planned to use it as hiding place. He stayed there until everything went quiet, and he believed it must be late at night … In the darkness his blindness gave him an advantage over the guards. He felt his way to the Meng River running through his village’s tumbling and falling, hundreds of times. He tried to cross the river but couldn’t because it was too large. So, Chen told neighbours, he simply walked across the bridge. There were guards stationed there. He couldn’t believe they didn’t stop him, but thinks they must have been asleep …”

[Note: The irony is, Chen has been actively spoken to the media since he left the US embassy: he spoke to theWashington Post while on his way to the hospital in the embassy van; he accepted the Congressional Hearingwhile in the hospital in Beijing; within days of arriving in the US, he faced media in a public forum such as theCouncil of Foreign Relation; and had exclusive interview by individual media such as the CNN and NYR. The fascinating issue is none of these media appear to demonstrate any interest in clarifying or critically clarifying all those dozens of murky stories. ]

Escape Story 16

The Truth about the House Arrest

Despite of the so-called 100 men and 7 to 8 rings of security, the blind Chen had escaped; despite of these news headings: “Chen Guangcheng’s escape sparks China round-up” (BBC, 29 April) and “China tightens restrictions on Chen’s family” (Detroit Free Press, 11 May), Chen’s brother was reportedly “Escapes Guarded Village” as well (New York Times, 24 May), and “Returns Home” few days later (VOA, 27 May).

The only story that makes sense to me is Chen wasn’t under house arrest at the time of his so-called “escape”. The Chinese spokesperson claims that “Chen was a free person” from the very beginning of the escape saga.

However, to my frustration, it took me a lot of reading before I managed to find one report in the western media that mentioned the Chinese claims. This is how The Guardian report on the 4^th of May (bottom up 3^rd paragraph): “Chinese foreign spokesman Liu Weimin denied that Chen had been held under house arrest. “After Chen Guangcheng’s release from the prison he was a free person, as far as I know. He has been living in his home town. “China has criticised the US for interfering, and demanded an apology from US Diplomats.”

Conclusion

Chen is obviously the indisputable winner in this “escape” saga. What about the public trust on the media? Can we/you still trust your media?

Extra reading: For those who have the time, please read this Washington Post story (11 May): “In Chen’s frightened village, surveillance increases, thugs keep outsiders at bay”, and then click on the video with the image of two cars. Listen to the verbal scripts, and observe the images on the video. You will notice that, the so-called video is a cut and paste of still images. When the verbal scripts claim that “They block anyone from entering the village, shouting at and kicking vehicles that slow down or venture too close,” there is no footage in the video that supports his claims. In fact, as an experience Washington Post journalist, I wonder how Keith B. Richburg would travel all the way to a remote village, and not recording what he saw with a video camcorder. Even if Washington Post cannot afford to buy him one, he could have used his cell phone or IPod to do the job.

Coming soon: Chen and his wife have been badly beaten by the Chinese regime, how true is the story?

Lawyer: Blind activist Chen Guangcheng’s brother goes missing in China

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39788177?launch=47490955&BTS=MSVNMB&height=400&width=500

Blind social activist Chen Guangcheng is starting a new life of freedom in the U.S. NBC’s Michelle Franzen reports.

By Reuters

BEIJING — The brother of blind activist Chen Guangcheng has gone missing, a lawyer said on Saturday, days after he fled his village in northeastern China to seek help for his son who has been detained in a case that has become a rallying point among rights activists.

Chen Guangfu, the eldest brother of Chen Guangcheng, fled his home in Shandong province and arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to seek legal help for his son, Chen Kegui, who is being held on an attempted murder charge.

He appears to have become the latest target of the government’s reprisals against Chen Guangcheng’s family in the wake of the blind activist’s escape from his village in late April after 19 months of detention at home…(Read More)