Chen’s most publicized case came in 2005. Chen exposed harsh illegal measures by local authorities when enforcing the one-child policy. Family planning officials from Linyi municipal authorities in Shandong forced thousands of people to undergo sterilization or to abort pregnancies. Chinese national regulations prohibit such brutal measures. The officials were also accused of detaining and torturing relatives of people who had escaped from the forced measures.
Chen filed a class-action lawsuit for excessive enforcement of the one-child policy on the women’s behalf and drew attention to the plight of the villagers.
Although the suit he filed was rejected, the incident was publicised on the Internet and by the U.S. publication Time, which interviewed Chen. This prompted the National Population and Family Planning Commission to launch an investigation in August 2005. A month later, the Commission announced that several Linyi officials were detained.
As a result of this lawsuit, Chen was placed under house arrest from September 2005 to March 2006, with a formal arrest in June 2006. During his trial, Chen’s attorneys were forbidden access to the court, leaving him without a proper defender. On 24 August 2006, Chen was sentenced to four years and three months for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic”.
Chen was released from prison on 8 September 2010 after serving his full sentence, but remained under house arrest or “soft detention” at his home in Dongshigu Village Chen and his wife were reportedly beaten shortly after a human rights group released a video of their home under intense police surveillance on February 9 2011
On April 22 2012, Chen escaped his house arrest and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
On May 2 2012 he left the embassy for medical treatment at a Beijing hospital. He agreed to depart the embassy under a deal reached by U.S. and Chinese authorities that would have allowed him to stay in a safe place in China and study law. But he changed his mind hours after leaving the embassy, saying his family had been threatened, and he wanted to go to the United States.
It was reported on 4 May 2012 that he will be allowed by China to travel to the United States to study.
Chen’s case received sustained international attention, with the U.S. State Department, the British Foreign Secretary, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International issuing appeals for his release. Chen is a 2007 laureate of the Ramon Magsaysay Award and in 2006 was named to Time Magazine's list of "2006's Top 100 People Who Shape Our World" in the category of "Heroes and Pioneers.
Early life
Chen was born November 12 1971, in the small village of Dongshigu, Shandong Province, approximately 200 km from the city of Jinan. Due to a severe fever, Chen lost his sight at an early age. He was illiterate until 1994 when he was enrolled by Qingdao High School for the Blind and graduated in 1998. Chen began developing an interest in the law, and enlisted his brothers to read legal texts to him. He then studied in Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine from 1998 to 2001, specializing in acupuncture and massage. After graduation he returned to his home region and found a job as a masseur in the hospital of Yinan county. Nonetheless, he managed to attend law classes, and learned enough to aid his fellow villagers when they sought his assistance
Activism
Chen’s first experience petitioning authorities was in 1994, when he traveled to Beijing to appeal against taxes that were being wrongly levied on his family. In China, disabled persons, such as Chen, are theoretically exempt from taxation and fees. The appeal was successful, and thereafter Chen helped other individuals with disabilities to avoid undue taxation. He also began organizing villagers to engage in collective action campaigns. In 2000, Chen organized villagers in his hometown and 78 others to petition against a paper mill that had been spewing noxious chemicals into a river, destroying crops and killing wildlife.
