A blind legal activist has escaped house arrest in China, leading to extensive raids by the authorities.
Chen Guangcheng slipped out of the well-guarded house in Dongshigu where he has been held for a year and a half. Campaigners said his associate He Peirong then picked him up and drove him to “a relatively safe place”.
“His mental state is pretty good. He’s alive, but whether he’s safe I don’t know,” Ms He said from her home city of Nanjing. She said she left Chen a few days ago after the escape on Sunday.
She declined to discuss details, other than to say he is no longer in his home province of Shandong. Ms He and Bob Fu, an activist based in Texas, said they had been in contact with Mr Chen’s family. They said Zhang Jian, chief of the town that oversees Dongshigu, led others to Mr Chen’s brother’s home.
“Zhang Jian found out Chen was gone. He was furious,” Ms He said. “They beat all the family who were at the home.” She said Chen’s nephew, Chen Kegui, said he wounded several people with a cleaver in self-defence.
Fu said Chen Kegui and his father were detained by paramilitary police armed with electric shock batons.
Chen Guangcheng, 40, served four years in prison for exposing forced abortions and sterilisations. Since his release in September 2010, local officials had kept him confined to his home.
