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Chen tells CNN of “First Concrete Step Forward”

May 17, 2012

By Dave Andrusko

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) (R) and Chinese dissident and president of ChinaAid Bob Fu (L) listen to Chen Guangcheng on the phone during a hearing before the Global Health, and Human Rights Subcommittee of House Foreign Affairs Committee May 15, 2012

CNN is reporting today that pro-life human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has said that the paperwork for passports for himself, his wife, and their two children has been completed.  “It’s the first concrete step forward,” said Chen, who is anxious to study abroad, presumably in the United States.

Chen’s encouraging remarks came a day after he talked via speakerphone with members of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights, the second time he had spoken with Congress in twelve days.

Chen served more than four years in prison after revealing China’s brutal policy of forced abortion and forced sterilization, part and parcel of its “One Child” policy. He had been under house arrest for 19 months before he escaped April 22.

Chen told CNN on Wednesday that officials from his Shandong Province in eastern China provided him with the forms. The day before—the same day Smith held his subcommittee hearing–Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said, “We are ready when he and his government are ready,” adding, “We have been for more than a week now in terms of his visa to come pursue his studies.”

Nonetheless, Chen’s situation remains precarious, as is that of his family and supporters.

Tuesday’s hearing entitled, “Chen Guangcheng: His Case, Cause, Family, and Those Who are Helping Him,” featured human rights leaders determined to assist Chen by speaking out at an open hearing. As he did May 3 at a meeting of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Bob Fu, himself a former political prisoner and now Founder and President of the ChinaAid Association, made contact with Chen during the hearing.

“I just want to talk about what had happened to my other family members after I escaped from my own home,” Chen told the panel through a translator. “On April 26th around midnight, there was a group of thugs [of] the Chinese local authorities, [who] just broke into my home, and started beating them violently. And my elder brother was taken away by these thugs and without any reasoning, and then they came back and started beating up on my nephew, Chen Kegui. They used sticks and violently beat him up. For three hours he was bleeding on his head and face—it would not stop.”

Fu talked about what happened when lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Teng Biao tried to visit Chen Guangcheng in hospital. “They were both beaten and Jiang lost the hearing in one ear,” said Fu.

Fu told the panel that despite the fact that the two sides have reached a well publicized agreement on Chen’s freedom and security, Chen remains under house arrest in hospital, and his visitors are barred, tailed and beaten.  “Chen Guangcheng has paid an extremely heavy price to defend the rights of the disadvantaged groups who were the victims of coercive population control measures (mainly women).  His conscience, courage and spirit has been like a light shining in the long dark night of China’s human rights, and also inspiring people around the world who are struggling for human rights and justice.”

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Categories: China