Chen's case was recently launched into the national spotlight when actor Christian Bale was roughed up by government operatives after he tried to visit Chen.
Entertainment Weekly insists, "make no mistake: China covets an Oscar that would legitimize its booming movie industry." China's two previous academy award entries did not receive the nod.
Smith joined an international awareness campaign to make the persecuted Chen's future so much brighter that - dare we say it - he would need to wear shades.
At around 4:00 pm., authorities started the beating. Chen's screams of pain were heard first, while his wife Yuan Weijing was heard shouting angrily and their son Kesi cried.
The horror captured in a recent closed circuit video on a Chinese street is nothing more than a microcosm of the systematic dehumanization of the nation's children that has been in process for decades, through the country's ruthless "one child policy."
According human rights organizations there are ominous reports emerging from China about the fate of the blind lawyer, who has suffered years of imprisonment and persecution for his outspoken position against China’s brutal one-child policy.