I was on Twitter earlier this afternoon (April 26, Thursday), around 1:30 pm (China Time 1:30 am, April 27, Friday) someone tweeted a post taken from Weibo saying that Chen Guangcheng’s nephew, the son of his eldest brother Chen Guangfu (陈光福), slashed a knife at a group of thugs breaking into his house. And he had called the police to surrender himself and he was now outside the village waiting for the arrival of the police. A cell phone number was provided by the tweet.
I called and didn’t really expect to find him. But I did! His name is Chen Kegui 陈可贵. In distress, speaking and crying in turn, Kegui told me what had happened. Early in the morning (April 26, Thursday), a lot of vehicles (not police vehicles, he said, at least not marked as police vehicles) and plainclothes guards descended on the village. His mother (Ren Zongju, 任宗举, CGC’s sister-in-law) overheard the guards saying on the phone that CGC disappeared and only Weijing was home. The villagers, including CGC’s relatives living in the village, had no idea what had happend.
Around 11 o’clock at night, Zhang Jian (张健, the head of the township who had more than once beaten CGC) and a group of thugs broke into the house of Chen Guangfu and took him away. They also tried to apprehend Chen Kegui who lives in the same property but in adjoining rooms. Kegui didn’t know what was going on or what they wanted. He was enraged by these people breaking into his home and taking away his frail father without showing any IDs or documents. His own six-year-old son was sick with a fever. His mother was screaming and crying. Kegui confronted the thugs with two kitchen knives and slashed them. The thugs ran away. Kegui called the police to surrender himself. When he answered my call around 2 am Beijing time, he was outside the village waiting for the police. He had multiple injuries from the thugs.
He said just look at his uncle Chen Guangcheng’s case, there is no rule of law to speak of in China. He said he feared for the life of his uncle CGC, he doesn’t know what will happen to his mother, his wife and his son, and he feared for his own life.
I asked Kegui when was the last time he had seen his uncle CGC. He said he caught a glimpse of him earlier this year when another uncle of his died. At the time, CGC broke out of his house but was taken back by a couple dozen guards. Before that, the relatives were allowed to visit CGC on the Chinese New Year’s Day in the beginning of 2011 and stayed briefly. Other than this two occasions, he had not seen CGC for all this time.
Listen to the recording: http://www.freecgc.blogspot.com/2012/04/blog-post_27.html
Update: The Associated Press is now reporting that Chen Guangcheng has escaped from house arrest. Sources are now saying that Chen may already be in a US consulate.
wow. I saw your tweets but I didn’t see from them from the beginning, so i had a hard time deciphering the meaning of them in Chinese. Thanks for this post, now I know what’s going on.
The latest news is that Chen Guangcheng has managed to slip out of his house, but it’s unclear where he is now. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/activists-blind-chinese-law
Watched you on cspan from Jamaica. Keep up the good work.
[…] who served four years in prison for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in his community.Yaxue Cao managed to contact Chen’s nephew Chen Kegui by telephone and heard his account of last night’s events, including the detention of his father and his […]
[…] harass the family just because they’re having a bad day. As Yaxue Cao of Seeing Red in China notes: Around 11 o’clock at night, Zhang Jian (张健, the head of the township who had more than once […]
Thanks Yaxue
Chen Guangcheng is “100% safe” now, and has just released a 15-minute vedio making three demands to Wen Jiabo, the prime minister. Watch here: http://www.freecgc.blogspot.com/2012/04/blog-post_2477.html?tw_p=twt
[…] Thursday night, Ya Xuecao, a blogger during a Web site Seeing Red in China, available a review with a nephew, Chen Kegui, as he was watchful to obey to police. “I was […]
BBC TV News 24 are reporting Chen Guangcheng’s escape from house arrest and showing pictures of him taken from the 15 min video.
You can read the English transcription of Chen Guangcheng’s 15-minute vedio describing his treatment by local thugs and government and making three demand to Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister of China:
http://sjreporter.blogspot.fr/2012/04/chen-guangcheng-addresses-premier-wen.html
[…] more information, please click this link. albertkan Cancel Reply Your Name Email […]
[…] Thursday night, Ya Xuecao, a blogger at the Web site Seeing Red in China, recorded a conversation with the nephew, Chen Kegui, as he was waiting to surrender to police. […]
[…] client, issued the following statement. As the first source in English (I believe so) that broke the news of Chen Kegui’s plight and provided a complete interview of the young man describing the events […]