{"id":4583,"date":"2012-05-25T19:49:13","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T01:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4583"},"modified":"2012-05-25T19:49:13","modified_gmt":"2012-05-26T01:49:13","slug":"how-exactly-did-the-legal-activist-%e2%80%93-blind-and-with-a-broken-leg-%e2%80%93-escape-house-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4583","title":{"rendered":"How exactly did the legal activist \u2013 blind, and with a broken leg \u2013 escape house arrest?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kathrin Hille and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Dongshigu is a small village in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong. Nestled amid apple orchards, peanut fields and cornfields, the scattering of houses \u2013 built from the pale rocks strewn over the nearby hills \u2013 can appear almost idyllic on a nice day. But at the corner of the narrow country road that leads into the village, two men block the way. \u201cWhat do you want?!\u201d one barks through our car window, before brusquely waving us away. Similar-looking men \u2013 plainclothes policemen in their 40s, tall and orderly dressed \u2013 stand on several streets branching off the highway. They are guarding against the spirit of a man who has long since gone: Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist whose desperate dash for freedom has made global news, arrived in New York last weekend.<\/p>\n

Chen Guangcheng arrives in New York, last weekend
\nChen Guangcheng\u2019s daring escape from imprisonment in his farmhouse to the US embassy in Beijing \u2013 forcing the world\u2019s two biggest powers to negotiate over his fate \u2013 is already the stuff of legend. In his home village, he became a heroic figure a long time ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe held my hands once,\u201d says one old lady who met Chen seven years ago. Resting from work in the fields near Dongshigu, she recalls visiting Chen in 2004 because he was supporting women against violent family-planning officials. \u201cHe helped my daughter and he listened to our story,\u201d she says. \u201cHe can\u2019t see, but he feels.\u201d It is a fitting characterisation of a man who has broken out of the confines of his disability, narrow social convention and a repressive political system through his sensitivity, empathy and sheer will power.<\/p>\n

Chen was born the fifth son of a farmer, and was robbed of his eyesight by a fever before he was a year old. The boy all but ignored his handicap. \u201cHe was known in his village as a naughty boy who would always climb trees and walls even though he was blind,\u201d says Bob Fu, the Chinese-born pastor who runs the US-based NGO ChinaAid.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kathrin Hille and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing: Dongshigu is a small village in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong. Nestled amid apple orchards, peanut fields and cornfields, the scattering of houses \u2013 built from the pale rocks strewn over the nearby hills \u2013 can appear almost idyllic on a nice day. But at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}