Bashing Of Blind Activist Latest Blow For One-child Policy In China

Enforcement of China's one-child policy, created in the 1970's, has involved the use of forced abortion, even as late-term as eight months. In the past week, a blind activist, Chen Guangcheng, who exposed these activities by the Chinese Communist Regime, was bashed while attempting to leave his home where he has been under house arrest since September. Reuters describes his assailants as “club-wielding goons” and “thugs”, apparently hired by local communist Communist authorities. He is one of several activists attacked recently.

Washington-based Radio Free Asia reported: “About nine people, including two officials, punched and kicked Chen Guangcheng on Monday,” when he tried to get out to greet friends barred from entering his home. Chen's cousin told RFA: “He fell to the ground five or six times. He is a blind man. He could not see them.””. It was also the second attack on a civil rights campaigner in as many weeks. The activist's cousin, a village official, spoke to reporters from Reuters. “Up to 30 people have been guarding Chen''s house in each shift round the clock. The only visitor allowed is Chen''s older brother. Chen and his family have survived on food bought by the goons, who have beaten him at least twice when he tried to leave his home. He was denied medical treatment,”, claims the January 6 Reuters report. Officials accused him of providing “”intelligence”” to foreigners about forced abortions and sterilisations as part of strict family planning rules.

In recent years, China's extreme movement to plan population growth has created numerous slogans, such as “To abort or not determines the fate of your land and cows.” An October 2005 Epoch Times International edition describes one woman's experience of having to watch her 8-month-old aborted child die under lethal injection. “This policy severely restricts women's freedom and rights…. the slaughtering of millions of unborn young comes from this policy. The memories and pain of being dragged onto an operating table will haunt Chinese women forever.”

According to the Reuters report, several civil rights campaigners have been either beaten or jailed in the past year, and corruption in the Chinese Communist Regime's regime's officials has recently received international attention. The 3-month detention of Guo Feixiong, an adviser to a law firm, who assisted residents of Taishi village in the southern province of Guangdong vote out their elected chief over allegations of corruption, included a month-long hunger strike by him. “Another activist, Lu Banglie, was beaten by thugs last October when he tried to help a British reporter from the Guardian newspaper enter Taishi to interview villagers. Taishi erupted in a confrontation between villagers and police last September. Villagers accuse local officials of selling off 2,000 mu (133 hectares) of valuable land, while paying them few benefits.”

Asked if putting Chen under house arrest broke the law, the official said: “”It''s orders from above. It''s not us.”.. “No one in the village is bad mouthing Chen Guangcheng. We all support him…,” “But whoever helps him will be detained.””. Chinese state media, meanwhile, have claimed that Chen's “whistleblowing prompted the government to sack and detain several officials in Shandong''s Linyi city”; however, Chen told Reuters on Friday when a power failure thwarted the phone blockage to his house, that he has not heard of any punishments being administered.