Chen Guangcheng and his wife are now imprisoned in a disguised form

Translated by China Aid Association
Radio Free Asia August 29, 2011

There is an event that makes people more concerned about the situation of Chen Guangcheng and his wife, the blind rights defender of Shandong who has been placed under house arrest.  The authorities are constructing a new building near his house and plan to use it as a disguised prison for the two people.  (Reported by Ji Lisi)
Zhenzhu (Pearl), the Nanjing-based rights defender who has always been concerned about the status of Chen Guangcheng, told the Cantonese section of this radio station on Monday that she has got from a reliable source of information that Yi’nan authorities are constructing a new building in the vicinity of Chen Guangcheng’s house and the construction will be complete soon. According to her: “The officials in the village where Chen Guangcheng stays, have been constructing a house out of their wishful thinking for Chen and his wife without their approval.  I got news the other day that the house would soon be complete.”
Pearl said: It is believed that the authorities are planning to force Chen and his wife to move to the new house and imprison them in a disguised form.  By then, the two of them will be in a worse condition.  She said: “After the house is built, they plan to move the two of them there by force and it will be like a prison where they will be completely separated from the rest of the world.  They will be separated from his mother and their children.  In that case, we will worry more about their situation.”

Pearl has gone alone to Yi’nan twice in an attempt to visit Chen Guangcheng and his wife, but each time she was rudely chased away by the authorities and failed to visit Chen and his wife.  After Pearl’s failed attempts, Liu Shasha, a rights defender from Beijing, arrived at Linyi on last Friday in the hope of negotiating with officials in charge of Chen’s affairs and tried to fight for the right of Chen Guangcheng’s youngest daughter to go to school.
On Monday, Liu Shasha went respectively to Linyi Municipal Bureau of Education and the Public Security Bureau for inquiries.  According to her, officials in the Bureau of Education said they allow the child to go to school and the departments in charge of education in the county government and township government should also supervise and make sure children go to school.  She regards all this as the officials’ indirect promise that they will handle this case.  She will stay in Linyi till early next month and follow up on the issue.  She said: “The child should go to school.  If they hint that the parents must not accompany her to the school, they can let other people accompany her to school such as the grandmother.  I estimate that they will solve the problem this way, but I am not sure of this.  Anyway, I can rest assured only when I see the child goes to school.
However, Pearl said that Chen Guangcheng and his wife hope their youngest daughter can go to school together with their son who is now living at a relative’s place.  However, the authorities have always rejected the request that their youngest daughter’s household registration be moved to that place.  In the meantime, they place the child under house arrest together with her parents and the child has thus lost the right to go to school.
Chen Guangcheng now suffers the authorities’ suppression because he exposed the Linyi authorities’ violent implementation of the family planning policies.  After that, he was sentenced to four years and three months on the charge of “intentional destruction of properties” and “inciting a mob to disturb traffic.”   After he was released in September of last year, he was immediately placed under house arrest.  The US-based China Aid Association published in February of this year five sections of Chen Guangcheng’s most recent videos in which he exposes in details the inhumane treatment they have suffered during the house arrest.  In June of this year, Yuan Weijing sent out an urgent note looking for help in which she mentions both Chen and she were violently beaten in February of this year by the people who were monitoring them.  The authorities broke into their house on several occasions for a search and illegally took away a computer, camcorder, a video recorder, flashlight, various kinds of battery chargers, text documents, etc.
In another development, there is still no news on Yao Lifa, a rights defender in Hubei who has lost contact with the outside world for three months.  Ms. Feng, Yao Lifa’s wife, said that since Yao was taken away by Qianjiang police from the house of a friend of his in Beijing early this month, his family members have inquired for his whereabouts through many sources without success.  Both the Qianjiang police and the experimental elementary school where Yao Lifa worked pass the buck to each other when asked about his whereabouts.  Ms. Feng said that she has learned from a friend that treatment on Yao Lifa’s injured back is now delayed and the doctor said his vertebra is now deformed and bent and it could cause a permanent injury, about which she is very much concerned.  She said: “The doctor said that bone does not grow right and that’s why his back is bent.  If we want it to grow in the right manner, we have to break it and then let the patient receive the treatment.”
Yao Lifa is the first person in mainland China who has been elected a local delegate to the National People’s Congress through self-recommendation.  He suffers suppression because he exposes the violations of law and regulations in local elections.  In early June, the US embassy in China called him for an interview.  When the authorities learned it, they heightened their surveillance on him. On June 20, the elementary school where he worked placed him under house arrest in the name of running a study class.  On the early morning of July 4, Yao Lifa jumped from the building of the hotel where he was detained.  Yao Lifa, who successfully escaped from the house arrest was again taken away by some plain-clothes in Beijing.
http://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/china_dissident-08292011104430.html


China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.chinaaid.org

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