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Chen Guangcheng: Rebel without a Cause? Reading the Washington Post, you would think so

May 1, 2012

By Dave Andrusko

In this image made from video, blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng is seen on a video posted to YouTube Friday, April 27, 2012 by overseas Chinese news site Boxun.com

I confess that there’s been too much on my plate today to do a thorough search, but fortunately the Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney did. His excellent article is aptly titled, “Is Chen Guangcheng a rebel without a cause?”

As you know from “Not forgetting why Chen Guangcheng was arrested: exposing forced abortion,” Chen escaped house arrest in Shandong province and apparently is under U.S. protection in Beijing. I already knew that the Washington Post story this morning somehow managed not to mention WHAT got Chen tossed in jail for more than four years. Thanks to Carney, I found out the Post was hardly alone.

Referring to the Post, he writes, “Search the article.”

In 1,300 words “you’ll never learn why the Communist Chinese regime wanted to silence him,” Carney writes, “that he has exposed the horrors of China’s one-child policy, including forced abortions and forced sterilizations.”

He adds,

“‘Abortion’ never appears. Nor does ‘one-child’ ‘family-planning,’ or ‘sterilization.’ Of the five Post news articles I found discussing Chen, only one of them has the word ‘abortion’ The Post wasn’t the only one to make this weird omission. CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell doesn’t mention abortion, sterilization, or the one-child policy at all. Others simply buried this detail, making sure to describe Chen generically as a ’legal activist.’ Reuters, in the 13th paragraph, mentions that Chen ‘campaigned against abortions forced under China’s ‘one child’ policy.’”

Please also take to also read “Chen Guangcheng’s Reasonable Demand Biggest Test for Chinese Premier Wen and Obama Administration.”

Categories: China