A blind social activist who blew the whistle on an east China county which forced villagers to undergo sterilizations and detained those who refused has been badly beaten, sources said yesterday.
Chen Guangcheng, 34, has been under house arrest since mid-August for speaking out against violations of family planning rules by Shandong's Yinan County and filing a class-action suit on behalf of villagers.
On Tuesday Chen was beaten and punched by several thugs allegedly hired by the county government when he tried to leave his home in Dongshigu village, one friend, Xu Zhiyong, said.
"Several of the people guarding him beat him when his family members tried to help him out of his house," Xu said. "He suffered broken teeth and was bleeding."
A villager surnamed Zhao confirmed Chen had been beaten.
"No one can see him and he can't see anyone," Zhao said.
Xu and Li Fangping, both Beijingers, had gone to the village to try to help Chen mediate with the local government to release him from house arrest.
They were prevented from seeing him and were also punched and kicked by around 20 to 30 thugs, they said.
Xu and Li were heading back to Beijing yesterday after being forced to spend the night at a local police station.
The clashes are the latest incidents in a long battle between farmers in Dongshigu village and the local government over their method of enforcing China's controversial "one-child policy."
The case was recently exposed by Time magazine and the Washington Post, prompting an investigation by China's family planning agency which confirmed forced abortions were conducted.
Time last month reported that at least 7,000 people in Yinan underwent forced abortions and sterilizations earlier this year as officials were under pressure to limit the growth of the country's massive population.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing