From All Girls Allowed. I am particularly outraged by the failure of our government to lift a finger to help. One of the few things President Clinton did that I admired was save another famous Chinese activist.
Here is the announcement from All Girls Allowed, a group attempting to stem the tide of both prenatal and postnatal infanticides pandemic in China, aggravated by their nightmarish One (usually one boy) Child Policy.
At the end of last week, exciting news broke out of the escape of Chen Guangcheng, the blind attorney who was imprisoned in 2006 for filing a class action suit against the Chinese government on behalf of 130,000+ victims of forced sterilization. The western media immediately picked up the story, as Chen’s escape was daring and occurred at a critical time ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Beijing.
Unfortunately, recent reports have revealed that the U.S. government has reneged on its promises to help Chen and his family to safety, as Chen was sent out of the U.S. embassy to a hospital with no embassy escorts. He is now pleading for the opportunity for his family to safely leave China.
In a statement, Chai Ling said, “It’s disappointing. Chen’s escape gave the U.S. a chance to demonstrate its commitment to freedom and be on the right side of history-and now the chance is all but gone.” Chen’s friends have said that he is already under intense government surveillance and has not been allowed to make outside contact. Ling continued: “Secretary Clinton, whose work I’ve admired, had the power to provide asylum for Chen and his family. But she gave way under pressure-and now we don’t even know what will become of the activists who were arrested last week after helping Chen escape.”
While the mainstream media has been quick to point to Chen’s daring escape, there has been very little mention of the cause for which he has suffered–the defense of millions of women who have suffered forced abortion and forced sterilization under China’s brutal One-Child Policy.
Read Ling’s Huffington Post article here.
And an article from the Atlantic here, which reads in part:
A little over 12 hours after blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng was released from the U.S. embassy in Beijing, to which he had fled after escaping house arrest, Chen now says that American officials encouraged him to leave the safe haven of the embassy building, in part by making promises that they failed to keep. In an interview with CNN’s Steven Jiang, he expressed deep disappointment with the U.S. and with President Barack Obama personally. He said that embassy officials were no longer picking up his calls and that he already felt his rights being “violated” by the Chinese government, which had promised him his freedom in exchange for him leaving the embassy. He strenuously and repeatedly asked the U.S. and Obama to help him and his family leave China.
The interview portrays Chen as furious at the U.S., which he had only 24 hours ago seen as his greatest hope, and portrays the Obama administration as having sold out the high-profile activist, who in 2005 made an enemy of the Chinese government when he campaigned against thousands of forced abortions and forced sterilizations.
The interview, initially published on Jiang’s verified blogspot account, has since been removed. Neither he nor CNN appear to have explained why. (Update: Jiang, on Twitter, says he removed the interview to re-post it later as part of a larger CNN.com story, which is now up.)
Chen’s comments portray the U.S. as manipulating him, cutting him off from outside communication and encouraging him to leave the embassy rather than seek asylum. He said he was denied his requests to call friends. He said he felt the embassy officials had lied to him.
