{"id":94,"date":"2023-05-03T14:27:40","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T18:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/?p=94"},"modified":"2023-07-05T21:12:54","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T01:12:54","slug":"daring-circle-now-at-risk-aided-activists-flight-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/?p=94","title":{"rendered":"Daring Circle, Now at Risk, Aided Activist\u2019s Flight in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p>Source\uff1a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/04\/29\/world\/asia\/flight-of-chen-guangcheng-chinese-rights-lawyer-thrills-dissidents.html\">NY Times<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">BEIJING \u2014 For months, Chen Guangcheng, one of China\u2019s best-known dissidents, played a cat-and-mouse game with the phalanx of guards encircling his home. He dug a tunnel to try to escape, a friend says, but was found out. And he sneaked out a video that alerted his supporters to the smothering confinement he said he and his wife endured at the hands of the men who kept them virtual prisoners in their rural farmhouse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then last Sunday night, in an improbable escape, Mr. Chen, who is blind and reportedly weak from months of mistreatment, scaled the wall that had been built around his house, slipped past his security detail and made a desperate sprint to apparent safety in Beijing. The daring rush for freedom could not have been possible without a small network of activists who risked detention to help him and who, supporters with knowledge of the escape said, used coded messages to communicate and elude a surveillance apparatus that is one of the world\u2019s most pervasive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By Saturday, three activists who had either helped him or had been advocates in the past had disappeared, including the woman who drove Mr. Chen more than 300 miles to Beijing and a man who admitted to meeting the dissident as he was shuttled between safe houses in the capital. The man\u2019s wife said he was taken away by the police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Friends of Mr. Chen, along with people in the Chinese government, say he is now inside the American Embassy in Beijing. If true, that creates diplomatic headaches for the United States just days before Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other American officials arrive for annual talks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That the underground network of activists was able to help Mr. Chen evade his captors and move around the capital undetected for days has undoubtedly shaken Chinese leaders, who have become increasingly determined to suppress dissent through technology and brute force. Friends say his escape was so well executed that local officials did not realize until Thursday that he was gone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHis escape is nothing less than a miracle,\u201d said Zeng Jinyan, a human rights campaigner who also spent time with Mr. Chen last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Chen\u2019s flight could not have come at a worse time for China\u2019s leaders, who were already struggling to limit the fallout from the case of Bo Xilai, the center of a cascading scandal that cost him his seat in the Politburo and exposed internal divisions among top officials in the one-party state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-79elbk\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"css-z3e15g\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-wrapper-hidden\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-children\">\n<figure class=\"img-sz-medium css-d754w4 e1g7ppur0\" role=\"group\" aria-label=\"media\">\n<div class=\"css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Image<\/span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"css-r3fift\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2012\/04\/29\/world\/china\/china-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" sizes=\"auto, ((min-width: 600px) and (max-width: 1004px)) 84vw, (min-width: 1005px) 60vw, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2012\/04\/29\/world\/china\/china-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2012\/04\/29\/world\/china\/china-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp 2048w\" alt=\"An undated photograph of Chen Guangcheng with his family. The escape of the activist, who is blind, was months in the planning.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"765\" \/><\/div><figcaption class=\"css-xaa95i ewdxa0s0\"><span class=\"css-jevhma e13ogyst0\" aria-hidden=\"true\">An undated photograph of Chen Guangcheng with his family. The escape of the activist, who is blind, was months in the planning.<\/span><span class=\"css-1u46b97 e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit&#8230;<\/span><span aria-hidden=\"false\">China Aid, via European Pressphoto Agency<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-xzcyqw e11si9ry2\" data-testid=\"placeholder\">\n<div class=\"css-tux0zj e11si9ry3\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-overlay\">\n<div class=\"css-ky2sxg e11si9ry1\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-captionblock\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">News of Mr. Chen\u2019s improbable odyssey has electrified China\u2019s rights activists, scores of whom had sought for months to draw attention to his plight and to challenge his extralegal detention by flocking to Dongshigu village in\u00a0<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"Times article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/25\/world\/asia\/attempted-visits-to-chen-guangcheng-surge.html\">futile attempts to see him<\/a>. The journeys, many of them publicized through social media, always ended the same way: The guards paid to keep Mr. Chen and his family incommunicado would use violence to drive visitors away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Chen, 40, has long been a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre among human rights advocates both in China and abroad. A self-taught lawyer who was illiterate well into his 20s, Mr. Chen earned renown by defending disenfranchised peasants and the disabled. But\u00a0<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"Times article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/07\/20\/world\/asia\/20blind.html\">he infuriated local officials<\/a>\u00a0in Shandong Province after filing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of women forced to undergo abortions and sterilizations under the country\u2019s strict family-planning policy.<\/p>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2006, he was\u00a0<a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"Times article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/01\/13\/world\/asia\/13beijing.html\">convicted on charges<\/a>\u00a0that many legal experts say were trumped up. After serving his 51-month sentence, he was escorted back to Dongshigu, where local officials were determined to keep him silent. They turned his home into a makeshift prison, surrounding it with guards, surveillance cameras and a jamming device to ensure that he could not communicate with the outside world. His wife and young daughter were also confined to the house, although the daughter was later allowed to attend school accompanied by guards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many details of the escape remain murky, 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 cellphone \u2014 a remarkable detail given how hard the guards had worked to keep him isolated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Friends said Mr. Chen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As part of the plan, his wife stayed behind to distract the guards stationed outside the front door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cNow Chen Guangcheng is either in a safe place or in the hands of State Security in Beijing,\u201d she wrote Friday morning, shortly before the authorities in Nanjing arrived at her home and took her away, according to a fellow activist who was on the phone with her at the time. Ms. He remained unreachable on Saturday, and her microblog account has been disabled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to Hu Jia, a well-known dissident and AIDS activist who met with him in Beijing last week, Mr. Chen, who had arrived in the capital on Monday, spent the subsequent three days protected by a loose network of supporters who made sure he slept in a different apartment each night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Hu, who has been under constant surveillance, said the network consisted of five people. After several frantic days, he said, \u201cIt was decided that there was only one place in China that is absolutely safe, and that\u2019s the U.S. Embassy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said he was certain that Mr. Chen had made it to the embassy, because on Friday he received a predetermined coded message confirming that Mr. Chen had made it there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">China Aid, a Christian organization in Texas that has a network of supporters here, said it was willing to help Mr. Chen leave the country, but he was determined to stay in China, according to Bob Fu, the group\u2019s president. \u201cI tried to offer him the underground railroad, but the offer was declined,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even as they celebrated Mr. Chen\u2019s flight, activists worried about the backlash that appeared to be building. On Thursday night, Mr. Chen\u2019s brother was taken away by the local authorities, his family said, and state news media reported that his son was also being sought. Human rights advocates say they fear that Mr. Chen\u2019s wife and mother may also be in grave danger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Several of those who assisted Mr. Chen or publicly advocated on his behalf apparently have also been detained. In addition to Ms. He, the activist who drove him to Beijing, Guo Yushan, a scholar in Beijing, has been missing since Friday, after telling friends he was being trailed by security agents. And shortly after talking to a reporter on Saturday, Mr. Hu, the AIDS activist, was taken away by the police, his wife said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Chen\u2019s escape highlighted the organizational prowess of Chinese rights activists in the face of increasingly sophisticated surveillance. But he acknowledged that the success came at a price.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s hard to call this a victory if everyone involved in his escape ends up detained, arrested and imprisoned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source\uff1a NY Times BEIJING \u2014 For months, Chen Guangcheng, one of China\u2019s best-known dissidents, played a cat-and-mouse game with the phalanx of guards encircling his home. He dug a tunnel to try to escape, a friend says, but was found out. And he sneaked out a video that alerted his supporters to the smothering confinement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","category-report-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chenguangcheng.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}