[nfbwatlk] Imprisoned 'Blind Lawyer' Beaten, on Hunger Strike - Hu Jia

[Kaye Kipp]

Oh gee.  That's terrible.

Kaye
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar at olypen.com>
To: "nfbw" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 8:55 AM
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Imprisoned 'Blind Lawyer' Beaten,on Hunger Strike - Hu 
Jia


Sad news for those of us following the trials of Chen Guangcheng.

Carl Jarvis

*******
Imprisoned 'Blind Lawyer' Beaten, on Hunger Strike - Hu Jia

Posted by
Zhaohua Li
 :: 2007-06-19, 02:57 AM ::
Human Rights

Chinese activist
Hu Jia
 recently updated his blog with
a post on the status of Chen Guangcheng
 (陈光诚), the celebrated Blind Lawyer who was arrested and imprisoned last 
year after exposing gross abuse of China's birth-control policy by officials 
in
Shandong Province.

Hu's information appears to come from Chen's wife, Yuan Weijing, who 
apparently visited her husband in prison earlier today and found him in very 
poor condition.
John Kennedy at Global Voices provides the translation:

block quote
At eleven am, Yuan Weijing and Chen Guangfu entered the visitation room and 
noticed that
Guangcheng
 had been a ‘convict bald shave’ and that he had an extremely bad look in 
his eyes; when it was mentioned that his uncle had come from far away and 
was
just outside, Guangcheng had no visible response. Guangcheng told Yuan 
Weijing and Chen Guangfu that because he persisted in filing complaints 
every day,
the prison authorities had deemed him ‘disobedient’ and had six convicts 
punch and kick him... Guangcheng has been protesting by means of a hunger 
strike
now in its fourth day. For seventy-six hours he has refused food and water; 
in the midst of summer, Chen Guangcheng’s body will soon collapse.
[Full Text]
block quote end

Hu also reports that prison officials told Yuan her husband was on 
'restricted security' status for lodging protests against the prison. [NOTE: 
China Digital
Times has not been able to independently verify any of this information.]

Chen was sentenced to four years and three months in prison on charges of 
'disturbing the public order' last August (see TIME reporter Hannah Beech's 
reaction
to the conviction
here
). The trial, kept out of the Chinese press, was widely described by human 
rights groups as a sham.



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