Rights group: US asylum likely for China dissident

BEI­JING (AP) — U.S. and Chi­nese offi­cials are iron­ing out a deal to secure Amer­i­can asy­lum for a blind Chi­nese legal activist who fled house arrest, with an agree­ment likely before Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton arrives this week, a U.S. rights cam­paigner said Monday.

Bob Fu of the Texas-based rights group Chi­naAid said that China and the U.S. want to reach agree­ment on the fate of Chen Guangcheng before the annual high-level talks with Clin­ton and other U.S. offi­cials begin in Bei­jing on Thursday.

"The Chi­nese top lead­ers are delib­er­at­ing a deci­sion to be made very soon, maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours," Fu said, cit­ing a source close to the U.S. and Chi­nese gov­ern­ments. Both sides are "eager to solve this issue," said Fu, a for­mer teacher at a Com­mu­nist Party acad­emy in Bei­jing whose advo­cacy group focuses on the rights of Chris­tians in China and who main­tains a net­work of con­tacts in the country.

"It really depends on China's will­ing­ness to facil­i­tate Chen's exit," Fu said.

Chen, a well-known dis­si­dent who angered author­i­ties in rural China by expos­ing forced abor­tions, made a sur­prise escape from house arrest a week ago into what activists say is the pro­tec­tion of U.S. diplo­mats in Bei­jing, pos­ing a del­i­cate diplo­matic cri­sis for both governments.

The U.S. Embassy declined com­ment Mon­day either on Chen's sit­u­a­tion or talks involv­ing Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State Kurt Campbell.

Both want the annual talks, known as the strate­gic and eco­nomic dia­logue, to pro­vide bal­last to a rela­tion­ship that is often rocky and to pro­vide ways of work­ing out dis­putes on trade, Tai­wan, Syria, Iran and North Korea.

In a video made after Chen escaped from his vil­lage and released last Fri­day, the activist made no men­tion of want­ing to go abroad. Instead he beseeched Pre­mier Wen Jiabao to inves­ti­gate the beat­ings, harass­ment and other mis­treat­ment he, his wife and daugh­ter suf­fered at the hands of local offi­cials dur­ing 20 months of house arrest.

If Chen were will­ing to leave China, Wash­ing­ton could ill afford to turn him away. Clin­ton and other senior offi­cials have repeat­edly raised his case in meet­ings with Chi­nese offi­cials. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama is already under fire from Repub­li­cans over a case in which an aide to a senior Chi­nese leader entered the U.S. Con­sulate in Chendgu but then left, turn­ing him­self over to Chi­nese investigators.

The Euro­pean Union has also repeat­edly raised Chen's case and its office in Bei­jing issued a state­ment Mon­day call­ing for China to extend legal pro­tec­tions to him, his fam­ily and supporters.

"We call on the Chi­nese author­i­ties to exer­cise utmost restraint in deal­ing with the mat­ter, includ­ing avoid­ing harass­ment of his fam­ily mem­bers or any per­son asso­ci­ated with him," the state­ment said.

For Bei­jing, the issue is sen­si­tive because Chen enjoys broad sym­pa­thy among the Chi­nese pub­lic for per­se­ver­ing in his activism despite being blind and despite repeated reprisals from local offi­cials. And though Bei­jing dis­likes bar­gain­ing with Wash­ing­ton over human rights, allow­ing Chen to go abroad would remove an irri­tant in rela­tions with Wash­ing­ton. It would also pre­vent him from becom­ing a bar­gain­ing chip in an already bumpy tran­si­tion of power under way from Pres­i­dent Hu Jintao's admin­is­tra­tion to a younger group of leaders.

Fu, who has been a point of con­tact for peo­ple help­ing Chen, said he offered to help the dis­si­dent leave China through "a sort of under­ground rail­road" shortly after he made a dar­ing night­time escape from his heav­ily guarded farm­house on April 22. Fu had made such arrange­ments pre­vi­ously, help­ing the wife and two young chil­dren of another dis­si­dent lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, flee to the U.S. after they'd exited China over­land from Bei­jing to Thailand.

But Fu said that Chen refused the offer and chose instead to go to Bei­jing. Despite Chen's ini­tial resis­tance to exile, Fu said that might now be the only option.

"My sense is that at the end of the day, after China is will­ing to facil­i­tate it in a face-saving way with the U.S., he and his fam­ily may have to choose to travel to the U.S. in what­ever way that China agrees," he said.

Chen is widely admired by rights activists in China who last year pub­li­cized his case among ordi­nary Chi­nese and encour­aged them to go to Dong­shigu vil­lage and break the secu­rity cor­don. Even Hol­ly­wood actor Chris­t­ian Bale tried to visit, but was roughed up by locals paid to keep out­siders away.

A self-taught lawyer blinded by fever in infancy, Chen served four years in prison on what activists say were trumped-up charges after expos­ing forced abor­tions and ster­il­iza­tions in his and sur­round­ing vil­lages. Since his release in Sep­tem­ber 2010, local offi­cials con­fined him to his home. Amnesty Inter­na­tional and other human rights groups say he was abused over the last 18 months.

Posted by Scott Mahoney on Apr 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.