Escape of Democracy Activist and Continuing Persecution of Family of Blind Lawyer Chen Guangcheng Creates Latest International Firestorm for China dissident

Chen Guancheng’s friends and family detained and silenced by China (+video)

The Christian Science Monitor

Robert Wang, the deputy chief of mission of the embassy touches the face of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng’s daughter Chen Kesi, as Chen’s wife Yuan Weijing, center, and son Chen Kerui, back left, look on, at a hospital in Beijing, May 2. US officials said Thursday they are still trying to help. Nothing was said, however, about the safety of his friends and family, and the fate that some of them have suffered in recent days apparently made Mr. Chen decide that he no longer trusted government assurances that he could live peacefully in China

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The original plan, according to people involved in the negotiations, was that Chen would go to study law at Tianjin, an industrial port 70 miles from Beijing, where he would no longer be harassed or beaten by the thugs employed by the local authorities in his hometown of Linyi, in Shandong province, where he and his family had been held against their will for 19 months. Within hours, however, Chen had changed his mind, saying he feared for his safety and preferred to go abroad.