Regarding Chen Guangcheng's exit from NYU, we acknowledge that there's a chance he and his camp know something the rest of us don't. Yet if there is evidence of coercion from Beijing, neither Chen nor anyone else has been able to present any. "Chen did not respond to repeated requests for evidence of his claims," reports SCMP. In the same article, NYU professor Jerome Cohen gave perhaps the most withering s ...

Last May, lawyer-activist Chen Guangcheng was a media darling and international hero. His dramatic escape from the village of Dongshigu, where he was held under house arrest, made headlines around the wrold. After the US granted him asylum, one magazine recognized him as "rebel of the year." He was later honored with the Lantos Human Rights Prize. But as time went on, something changed. Or rather, Chen fail ...

Authorities still don't get it. It's over. Chen Guangcheng is gone. He's in the hands of overseas activists now, and hasn't said a thing that was new or interesting since winning the Lantos Human Rights Prize in late January. In other words, stop doing THIS SHIT: Security personnel in eastern China are carrying out a nightly harassment campaign against the brother of blind rights activist Chen Guangcheng, t ...

On Tuesday night, Chen Guangcheng received the Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize in Washington DC and delivered a 22-minute speech that was greeted with a standing ovation. Speaking at the National Cathedral, he called himself "lucky" to have received "care and kindness from people around the world" despite the persecution he faced at home; he talked about his fellow activists still imprisoned, and called human ...

Chen Guangcheng, in a measured, carefully scripted nine-and-a-half minute speech that was just released on YouTube, name-drops two dozen activists and dissidents while calling on world leaders to focus more attention on China's human rights. "Dear Mr. Xi Jinping, the whole nation is watching you," he says. "Whether you will follow the call of heaven and people to carry out reform, or kidnap the government a ...

Chen Kegui, nephew of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, was sentenced to 39 months in jail for his role in fighting back hired thugs and local officials who had broken into his home on April 27. The man slashed three officials -- out of a group of about 20 of the most spineless, chicken-livered, piss-poor excuses of human beings -- who had, among other things, upset Chen's feverish six-year-old child, and for t ...

A little more than six months ago, Chen Guangcheng was lost. Maybe not literally -- though there's a chance that's true as well, a blind lawyer-activist fleeing through the woods of Linyi in Shandong province, then chased via car -- but his whereabouts, for a week, was utterly unknown except to a circle of close friends and relevant officials from the US and China. Yet it was this disappearing act that thru ...

[caption id="attachment_5924" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Dongshigu Village, Linyi, Shandong province (AFP)"][/caption] Remember how, during the saga of blind activist Chen Guangcheng, authorities resorted to the basest means to intimidate and punish him? You'll surely remember Chen Kegui, Guangcheng's nephew, who was arrested for attacking goons with a knife -- goons disguised as police (or is i ...

CGC: "I want to correct one thing here. When we talk about my situation in the future, let's not use the word 'house arrest,' but instead let's use the term 'illegal detention.' ...My suffering was beyond imagination." ...

Here's Tania Branigan of the Guardian: The brother of the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has fled his family's captors in a second audacious escape from their village in eastern China. Chen Guangfu arrived in Beijing early on Thursday morning after breaking out of Dongshigu, where relatives have been living under tight guard since his brother, who is blind, fled to the US embassy in Beijing last month, ac ...

Chen Guangcheng arrived in New York on Saturday. The bow-tied man in the above screen capture from this video is Jerome Cohen, Chinese law expert at New York University, who shepherded Chen through all manners of obstruction and has secured him a fellowship to study at NYU. After the jump, links to the latest CGC stories, with China experts weighing in. ...

Chen Guangcheng may be leaving China soon, as passports are expected to be issued to his family "within 15 days," he said, according to the Telegraph. At least one BJC contributor is sad to see him go. By Lola B For the past couple of weeks, scrolling through windows of China news, the only face staring at me that commands my attention has been that of Chen Guangcheng. And you know what? There are worse thi ...

I thought I would do a Chen-free column this week, but the Global Times didn’t let me. On a political level, this is what happened last week at the American embassy: ...

Inspired by this. ...

[caption id="attachment_2459" align="alignnone" width="362" caption="Via Alicia"][/caption] I'm in Tianjin this weekend, so if Beijing burns while BJC posts videos of fiddlers, please note it would only be a coincidence. Here're Chen Guangcheng links. ...

Pic via National Confidential There is, to be sure, an Eric Esch-sized body of evidence that Mitt Romney is a louse, but I think the scurvy wellspring of his suckiness can essentially be summed up as such: he is the archetypal American politician (no, I don't care that he's Mormon), and if you identified him as such, he'd take it as a compliment. What that means is he's willing to do and say anything to get ...

Via Katie and Alicia ...

Kate Woodsome from Voice of America has put together a collection of Chen Guangcheng images on Storify, a meticulously sourced list that I'm sure will continue to grow. A reader passed along this petition urging the U.S. to provide asylum for Chen. And if you're able to flip over the Great Firewall, check out 墨镜.肖像 Dark Glasses. Portrait, a compilation of people showing support for Chen by donning black sha ...

Actually, the editorial is already here. And it's written by Shan Renping. We're fucked. ...

[caption id="attachment_2422" align="alignnone" width="490" caption="Yesterday at the US Embassy; pictured (left to right): Harold Koh, Chen Guangcheng, Gary Locke (AP Photo/US Embassy Beijing Press Office, HO)"][/caption] By RFH When is a book not a book? When it is written in the mind, perhaps, or when it is written by a politician. My proposed book about modern China has been somewhat taken over by event ...