The blind Chinese Human Rights activist,
34-year-old Chen Guang Cheng. © çhinaaid.orgA letter dated April 2nd 2009 has been sent to Lord Alton of Liverpool by Dr.Shen Yongxiang, Special Representative on Human Rights Affairs, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Government in Beijing, concerning the case of Chen Guangcheng.

Lord Alton raised concerns about the health of the blind bare-foot lawyer who was jailed for four years after exposing the coercive abortion of 120,000 women in the Shandong Province.  It has been reported that Chen has lost a great deal of weight, has been given a Spartan diet, and has seen a significant deterioration in his health. Lord Alton expressed concern that Chen has been denied proper access by doctors, lawyers and Chen's wife.

In his reply, Dr.Shen Yongxiang says:

"I acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated February 1st 2009. I've been busy with the Universal Periodic Review of China by the Human Rights Council and the Council's latest session.  It was a pleasure to meet you and your colleagues in Westminster in January. You raised the case of Chen Guangcheng during our discussion. We have provided relevant information to the Embassy of the UK in Beijing immediately after the human rights dialogue. I took note of your interest in this case in your letter and got some of the latest information from the Ministry of Justice. Let me share with you the following.  Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment by the Intermediary People's Court of Linyi City, Shandong Province on January 9th, 2007, for committing the crime of intentional destruction of property and gathering people to disturb traffic order. He is serving his term in Linyi Prison, Shandong Province. As to his health conditions, Chen caught a cold twice in 2008 and recovered after medical treatment. He suffers from chronic enteritis and received several medical examinations and treatment. The latest examination was in the middle of January 2009 and the result was "no pathogen was detected." Chen's relatives including his mother, wife and brothers call on him every month. As Chen is blind, the prison appointed a prisoner to take care of him, sending three meals to his room, going out with him for a walk at least three times every day, and reading newspapers and law books to him as he requires. Chen goes to prison supermarket every week and buys goods such as fruits and dairy products. I would like to reiterate that China is a country ruled by law. It's in the spirit of co-operation that I provide you with the above information. I hope that you and your colleagues take a more comprehensive, objective and fair perspective on China's human rights situation.

Yours sincerely,
Dr.Shen Yongxiang."


Lord Alton commented:

"There is a significant discrepancy between what the central authorities in Beijing are told and what actually happens on the ground in some of the provinces. Having spoken directly to Chen's lawyers and his wife,  I remain deeply concerned for his well-bring and health.  It is a clear sign of progress that China is now willing to respond directly to cases raised with its officials - and I welcome that. However, the idea that  a blind man could have done such criminal damage and caused such disruption to traffic as to warrant more than four years in prison beggars belief. Chen was jailed for speaking out and exposing a policy that is having disastrous consequences for China. It was revealed this week, for instance, that the policy has led to a population imbalance of more than 30 million more men than women.

The policy has also led to:

• Gendercide – the targeting of little girls which has created the population imbalance;
• Human Trafficking and Sexual Slavery – triggered by the absence of potential wives for between 20 and 30 million men.
• Stolen Children – now estimated at 70,000 a year in a burgeoning black market.
• Illegal children – a twilight world of unregistered children, ineligible for education and health, born above permitted quotas.
• Forsaken children – abandoned after divorce so that the parents can have another child in a new marriage.
• Rioting and violence - there have been violent clashes with family planning officials in places like Guangxi after a crackdown on families.
• Health problems – many women have suffered physically as a result of butchered attempts at sterilisation.
• Female suicide – one of the highest in the world and the only country where more women than men kill themselves.
• Aging population – in 25 years there will be insufficient young people to sustain those beyond retirement age.
• Ethnic targeting – Tibetans, Uigars and other minorities have been targeted and population balances deliberately distorted even though they are supposed to be exempt from the policy.

Despite claiming to be a country that upholds the rule of law, being willing to stand before the Chinese courts and to challenge unjust laws is itself a dangerous business. Chen's own lawyer, who is based in Beijing, told me that when he travelled to Shandong to represent Chen he was himself beaten up and left for dead by the roadside. After Chen first exposed the coercive population policy he was put under house arrest, physically abused, and then disappeared for a time. Human Rights Watch said: “His case is a text book example of how little the rule of law really means in China. Chen's lawyer, and a group I recently met in China, told me that the situation in the capital is often better than outside of Beijing. Never-the-less, they regularly find that the guarantees of personal rights and liberties are not worth the paper on which they are written. Chen should, for instance, have had regular access to his lawyer yet he has only been allowed to see him once. His health has been deteriorating but, despite repeated requests by Chen's wife and his lawyers, they say Chen has not been recently examined by doctors. His wife should have been allowed to have regular access to the prison. In fact, she says that she has only been allowed to see him on one occasion since 2006. When I spoke to her on the telephone she told me that Chen has had a shocking loss of weight and that he has been given a diet of little more than bread and water. He shares a cell with seven or eight other prisoners and they have been told never to communicate with him. Chen's wife is herself kept under virtual house arrest. And all this for telling the outside world how thousands of women had been forcibly aborted or sterilised as part of China's draconian one child policy – a policy which has been indirectly financed by British taxpayers via the Department for International Development. Quite what we are doing using any of our development funds in China ( a country whose economy, even in recession, can hardly be compared to many other less well off countries) is itself a mystery to me.  I have today (April 22nd) met an official from the Chinese Embassy in London and pressed them again to show clemency and mercy and to release Chen Guangchen. I hope that others from many parts of the world will join me in making this plea."