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Blind Chinese Activist to be Prosecuted for Opposition to Forced Abortion

By Hilary White 

LINYI, July 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Chen Guangcheng, the legal activist fighting China’s coercive one-child population control policy, is finally to be prosecuted on July 17 by China’s communist government, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. Chen is charged with destruction of property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic.
 
Chen has been in prison since September, and his wife, Yuan Weijing, told the Post, “There isn't much hope.” Speaking by telephone from the family farmhouse, where she has been detained, Weijing said, “Everything that has happened runs counter to [Chinese President] Hu Jintao's talk of democracy and governing by law. We live in a nation without law, a nation without morality.”
 
Weijing told the Post that in May, two US diplomats who had come to investigate the case were forcibly removed from the village by local officials. Several Chinese lawyers have attempted to visit the village and report having been threatened, detained or beaten.
 
Chen attracted international attention for his public advocacy for local victims of the one-child policy in the eastern China city of Linyi. Forcing or coercing abortion is officially illegal in China under recent legal reforms, but human rights watch organizations have said that due to quotas placed on local officials it still goes on unchecked, especially in rural areas.
 
Chen, who is blind and who taught himself law in order to defend the rights of local people, attempted to bring a lawsuit against officials in Linyi who, he said, were forcing women to undergo abortions, harassing and intimidating families and arresting pregnant women.
 
The efforts of Chen and the illegal activities of the local family planning officials are getting national attention in China as well as outside the country. The Washington Post reports that scholars and legal experts in the country have supported Chen’s efforts.
 
Foreign Ministry and the Propaganda Department have agreed to suppress news about Chen in the state media and the Internet.
 
Political pressure is keeping anyone in government from aiding Chen, even though he was fighting within the law. One legal expert spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, “In the current political environment, in this political system, no official has any incentive to help him.”
 
Read coverage in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701510....
 
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Chinese One-Child Policy Protester Missing Since Arrest Last Month
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06040507.html

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