[il-talk] Running Blind: China Activits's Dramatic Escape

[Bill Reif]

This is a great story. He can be forgiven for stumbling, as he probably 
didn't have a cane to bring with him and one would have called more 
attention to him than he wanted right then. Go, Chen, Go!

Running blind: China activist's dramatic escape
By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — Chen Guangcheng's blindness was a help and a hindrance as 
he made
his way past the security cordon ringing his farmhouse.
He knew the terrain — he had explored his village in rural China as a 
blind child
and moved as easily in darkness as in daylight. He was alert for the 
sounds of people,
cars and the river he would have to cross.
But he stumbled scores of times, arriving bloody at a meeting point with 
a fellow
dissident — the first of an underground railroad of supporters who 
eventually escorted
him to safety with U.S. diplomats.
A self-taught lawyer who angered authorities by exposing forced 
abortions, Chen is
now presumed to be under U.S. protection, most likely in the 
fortress-like American
Embassy in Beijing. Details of his improbable escape — making his way 
last week through
fields and forest, then being chased by security agents in Beijing — are 
emerging
in accounts from the activists who helped him.
Chen and his family had been harassed and kept under house arrest since 
the summer
of 2005, except for a four-year period when Chen was jailed on charges 
of disrupting
traffic and restrictions were eased on his wife and daughter. The 
couple's young
son lives with his mother's sister.
After Chen's release in September 2010, the family was again placed 
under house arrest,
their movements severely restricted, with even 6-year-old daughter Kesi 
subjected
to searches when she came home from school. Chen and his wife, Yuan 
Weijing, were
beaten several times.
The 41-year-old activist hatched his escape plan months ago with a 
simple idea —
he would just lie still, said Bob Fu, founder of the Texas-based rights 
group ChinaAid
and one of a handful of people to speak to Chen since he fled his village.
For weeks on end, Chen stayed in bed, saying he was too feeble to rise.
In fact, Chen wasn't well; his stomach was bothering him as it had for 
years. But
he exaggerated his condition to lull the guards into a sense of complacency.
The ruse worked. The guards didn't look in on him constantly, assuming 
he was still
bedridden, and when he escaped under cover of darkness, it took three 
days for them
to notice.
"He did a darn good job. ... He prepared for months, at least two 
months," Fu said.
"He didn't really move much, just laying in bed and making the 
impression that he
couldn't move."
The night was cool with just a sliver of crescent moon in the sky on 
April 22 when
Chen slipped out of his farmhouse in eastern China's Shandong province. 
Blinded by
fever as a child, Chen grew up exploring the nearby cornfields and dirt 
paths sightless,
so he had his bearings.
It wasn't the first time he had run away from Dongshigu village and his 
bitter, nearly
decade-long feud with local officials.
In 2005, Chen, his wife and a friend made a dash out of the village, 
running through
a cornfield to evade guards. He and his friend got all the way to 
Beijing, where
they met with diplomats and journalists, but his wife was captured. Days 
later, Chen
was seized by security guards on the streets of the capital and returned 
to house
arrest.
On that brief escape he had been helped by his sighted friend; this time 
Chen was
alone.
He followed a path to a field and from there took a road he knew would 
lead him to
a narrow river. After crossing it, he entered a wooded area that gave 
way to less
familiar territory, ground that continually tripped him up. He fell at 
least 200
times, he would tell his supporters.
He walked for hours, trying to put as much distance between himself and 
his heavily
guarded home as possible before daring to slip a battery into his mobile 
phone and
call He Peirong, a Nanjing-based English teacher-turned-activist who had 
promised
to help. She was waiting with a car.
When she finally found him, Chen was wet, covered in mud and blood, and 
had numerous
cuts and bruises.
"He was in very unbelievable shape when he was picked up," said Fu, 
citing a conversation
with He. Chen "was trembling, was physically weak. ... But he was 
determined to escape
from that miserable condition."
Fu said Chen took a few days to recuperate before making a video appeal.
Uploaded to YouTube and
Boxun.com
five days after Chen's escape, it showed the blind activist wearing a 
Nike wind breaker
and his trademark black sunglasses, looking relaxed and sounding strong. 
In it, he
pleaded with Premier Wen Jiabao to punish the local authorities who had 
subjected
Chen and his family to 20 months of house arrest, repeatedly beating them.
It was apparently taped in Beijing after He drove Chen north and handed 
him off to
another activist, who brought him to the capital.
He herself was detained Friday by police. Hours before, she told The 
Associated Press
she had been in contact with Chen's relatives, who told her that when 
the local village
chief discovered Chen was gone, "he was furious."
They beat Chen's wife, his brother and his adult nephew, she said.
In Beijing, Chen was mainly aided by Guo Yushan, founder of a think tank 
set up in
2007 in the capital's university district.
He also met with prominent activists Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, posing for 
smiling snapshots
with the couple — pictures they later posted to Twitter. They discussed 
Chen's plan,
saying he wanted "justice and freedom," and insisted he had no intention 
of leaving
China.
Zeng said he seemed thinner and his hair was grayer than she remembered 
it, but that
he was full of conviction.
"He was very certain and very clear," Zeng said. "He wants justice for 
his case and
his family and he doesn't want to go abroad, doesn't want exile."
Despite his desire to stay in China, Fu now says China and the U.S. are 
close to
a deal that would see Chen and his family given asylum in the United 
States. It could
be announced within days, he said Monday.
Several others besides Guo helped Chen in Beijing, but Zeng and Fu 
declined to name
them for fear they would be rounded up by security agents.
He, the former school teacher, has not been heard from since her 
detention Friday;
Guo was detained and released but did not respond to a request for an 
interview.
Colleagues said it wasn't "convenient" for him to talk, suggesting he is 
under pressure
from authorities to stay silent.
Zeng and her husband also were questioned, with Hu spending 24 hours in 
custody.
The only tidbit Fu dared to offer about Chen's experience in Beijing was 
that he
was involved in a car chase by security officials while being driven by 
a fellow
dissident. But the agents were after the driver and didn't even know 
Chen was in
the car.
"If they had known Chen was there, they probably would have shut down 
all of Beijing's
traffic," Fu said.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.