March 11, 2010
Faith McDonnell
Photo of Chen Guangcheng, Yuan Weijing, and their son, Kerui (courtesy of www.64culture.com) |
Chen Guangcheng is a courageous legal advocate famous for exposing the brutal practices of forced abortion and sterilization of Chinese women. Chen, who has been blind since childhood, is known as “the barefoot lawyer” because of his self-taught legal skills. Until very recently, the blind were denied college admission, so Chen was only permitted to audit classes and has no law degree. But neither his blindness nor his lack of a degree prevented Chen from exposing some 120,000 forced abortions in Shandong Province and filing class-action lawsuits on behalf of the victimized families.
The blind activist was well known in his home province of Shandong, Dongshegu Village, as one to whom fellow villagers came for advice. He started giving legal advice to disabled people in 1996, when he was 25 years old. But in 2005, his activism shook the entire country and beyond. This was when Chen went from village to village in Shandong Province collecting the testimonies of thousands and thousands of women who had been rounded up and forced to be sterilized or have abortions, even in the eighth month of pregnancy.
Chen presented his findings in a class-action lawsuit against the Linyi City bureau of the Family Planning Commission. He also exposed this hidden horror to major international media when he traveled to Beijing in June 2005 to file a lawsuit there. A year later, as Chen was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2006, the media was covering his arrest and his sentencing to four years’ imprisonment. In the Time tribute, Hannah Beech said, “He may have lost his sight as a child, but Chen Guangcheng’s legal vision has helped illuminate the plight of thousands of Chinese villagers.”
In September 2005, Chen was placed under house arrest by Linyi City officials. Beech related, “three hours after meeting with TIME in Beijing to discuss the issue, Chen was shoved into an unmarked vehicle by public-security agents from his hometown. They bundled him back to his village, where he was held under house arrest for months.” Then in March 2006, Chen was removed from his home and taken to detention. At his trial, which took place in August 2006, he was sentenced to four years and three months’ detention on the trumped-up charges of “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic.” Chen’s attorneys, some of the most well known Christian human rights attorneys in China, have also been subject to abuse of various forms for their defense of Chen Guangcheng.
Last February, Lord David Alton, member of the British House of Lords, provided an update on the blind activist, currently in prison for over 1300 days. He and his colleague in Parliament, Baroness Caroline Cox, had just returned from China where they met with Chen’s attorneys. Alton reported a very serious situation: Chen gravely ill and being denied medical treatment in prison. He also told how one of Chen’s attorneys, Li Fangping, had been assaulted and severely beaten, when he traveled from Beijing to Linyi to meet with Chen during Chen’s house arrest.
Lord Alton revealed that Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, had only been permitted to visit her husband once in the whole time of his imprisonment. Yuan herself is under the heavy surveillance of eight police officers at all times at home with their two children Kerui and Kesi. She told Alton and Cox that Chen, whose health is deteriorating, shares a cell with seven or eight other prisoners who have been told not to speak to him. He survives mostly on bread and water, with an occasional vegetable. Chen’s attorneys told Alton that in spite of his physical condition, Chen is “very strong in his resolve” and will not give up. They said that if he would “recant his previous statements” he would be released “immediately.” But he refuses to betray those families who have suffered through China’s one-child policy.
Disturbingly, not much more information has surfaced about Chen since Alton’s report. His courageous attorneys, like Li Fangping and Jiang Tianyong, continue to fight on his behalf, but Chen continues suffer imprisonment in the Chinese laogai (gulag). He should be released this year, if the Communist regime does not find some other reason to keep him imprisoned. By God’s mercy, Chen should then be able to return to his family once more.
Prayer Points for the Week of March 11 – 17, 2010
March 11
Thank God for the valiant actions of Chen Guangcheng. Ask Him to bless Chen in prison and that Chen would know the peace and presence of Jesus with him. Pray that Chen would come to know and experience the love of Christ as never before.
March 12
Pray for the women in China who have been forced to have abortions and/or sterilizations. Ask God to comfort them and bring healing to their bodies, minds, and emotions. Also ask God to comfort their husbands and other family members who have been devastated by this action.
March 13
Pray for an end to the horror of forced abortion and sterilization in China. Thank God for the activists like Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese human rights attorneys, and others, like Reggie Littlejohn, founder of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.
March 14
Pray for Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, and his two little children, Kerui and Kesi. Pray that the Lord would reveal Himself to them as never before and that they would know peace and love surrounding them in the midst of the storm. Pray that Chen would soon be returned to them.
March 15
Thank God for work of Chinese Christian human rights attorneys who are willing to risk their careers and their well-being to defend other activists like Chen Guangcheng. Particularly pray for Li Fangping and Jiang Tianyong, who continue to shine a light on the mistreatment and false imprisonment of Chen Guangcheng.
March 16
Also continue to pray and thank God for concerned members of Congress who are advocates for the persecuted church and human rights in China, and particularly for the issue of forced abortion. Ask God to continue to bless them and use them for His glory and for the deliverance of China from oppression. Pray for an expansion in the authority of those who care so deeply about such issues, and for continued encouragement in the wearying battles they face on Capitol Hill.
March 17
Pray for a change of heart and repentance on the part of the Chinese government. Pray that God would open the eyes that are blind and make tender the hearts of stone.
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