Report: Blind Anti-Abortion Activist Tortured for Four Hours

ChinaAid is revealing the gut-wrenching details of a brutal four-hour beating of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng and his wife, about whom there has been no reliable news for months. China’s government officials tortured the couple in front of their young child.

The July beating is but one episode in a pattern of horrific persecution against Chen because he exposed the violent and deadly measures used by Chinese authorities to enforce the nation’s One-child policy. The couple endured a similarly brutal beating in February after they smuggled out a videotape documenting the shocking conditions of their illegal house arrest following Chen’s release from prison.

A reliable source told ChinaAid that the July beating occurred after a storm knocked out equipment that authorities had installed in the Guangchengs’ house to cut off all their telecommunications contact with the outside world. With the equipment disabled, Chen was able to make phone calls on July 25, but the calls were intercepted by authorities. On July 28, Shuanghou town mayor Zhang Jian led a group of people to the home and beat and tortured the couple for four hours.

This is the sequence of events:

• 2 p.m.—authorities clear out everyone from Guangcheng’s village
• 3 p.m.—authorities conduct an exhaustive search of Guangcheng’s home and find a phone card in a pile of ashes
• 4 p.m.—authorities start the beating. Chen Guancheng‘s screams of pain were heard first, while his wife, Yuan Weijing, was heard shouting angrily and their son, Kesi, cried. After a while, Weijing’s screams of pain could also be heard. From then until 8 p.m., the only sounds were screams of pain.

Some time later, a village doctor was permitted to give Guangcheng some cursory medical treatment.

During the four-hour beating, Guancheng‘s elderly mother, who lives with them, was prevented from entering their home. When she was finally allowed to go in, neighbors heard her burst into tears, and her anguished cries—described as “gut-wrenching to hear”—continued for a long time.

According to the source, Zhang tortured Guancheng to try to get him to tell how he got the phone card to make the calls on July 25 and to reveal where he had hidden it. When Guancheng and his wife refused to give any details, their house was ransacked until the phone card was found in a pile of ashes.

Then the mayor’s men viciously beat up Guancheng and his wife in the presence of their son, Kesi. “As family men themselves with parents and children, how could they inflict such inhuman pain on a little boy?” the source asked.

ChinaAid’s founder and president Bob Fu said, “We condemn the Shandong authorities for their extreme brutality against innocent blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng and his wife.

“The Chinese government’s brutality against brave individuals like Mr. Chen who promote the rule of law should certainly make the world seriously doubt the sincerity of the Chinese government’s commitment to international human rights,” Fu added.

Guangcheng was imprisoned for four years and three months for exposing the violent measures used to enforce China’s One-child policy, including forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations that in his county alone in 2005 numbered 130,000.

Since his release from prison in Sept. 2010, Guangcheng has been kept under illegal house arrest, denied medical treatment for serious intestinal problems and deprived of all contact with the outside world. Reporters and activists who have tried to visit him have been roughed up and turned away.

As a result, there has been no reliable information about Guangcheng and his family for months, although there have been unconfirmed reports this fall that Guangcheng might have been killed by Chinese authorities.

On July 21, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed an amendment to the State Department 2012 appropriation bill supporting Guangcheng and his wife.