Breaking through the great wall of China,dissident style

As more details of his escape from virtual imprisonment in his home emerged,it became clear how difficult,and dangerous,the last week has been for the dissident,Chen Guangcheng,who is blind,and the supporters who risked detention to assist his desperate sprint to safety to Beijing.

That such a network was able to help Chen despite the country’s pervasive surveillance apparatus has alarmed Chinese leaders,who have been become increasingly determined to suppress dissent through technology and brute force. Chen was not only operating without sight last Sunday when he scrambled over the wall built around his farmhouse,friends say,he was also weakened by chronic diarrhea and hobbled on a leg injured by guards’ beatings. Chen,one of China’s best-known rights lawyers,managed to evade a phalanx of guards at his house and around his village and slip past the authorities as he made his way from rural Shandong province in northeast China to the capital 300 miles away.

“His escape is nothing less than a miracle,” said Zeng Jinyan,a human rights campaigner who spent time with Chen last week. Zeng and other friends,along with sources in the Chinese government,say he is now inside the US Embassy in Beijing where officials are trying to negotiate a diplomatic solution that would ensure safety for him and the family he left behind—and minimise any rupture in US-China relations.

News of Chen’s improbable odyssey has electrified China’s rights activists. Chen,40,has long been a cause celebre among human rights advocates in China and abroad. A self-taught lawyer,Chen infuriated local family planning officials in Shandong province after filing a class-action lawsuit for women forced to undergo abortions and sterilisations.

In 2006,he was jailed on charges legal experts say were trumped up. After a 51-month sentence,local officials turned his home into a makeshift prison,encircling it with guards,surveillance cameras and a wall. His wife and young daughter were also confined to the house,although his daughter did attend school accompanied by guards.

Last year the couple secretly recorded a home video. Infuriated after it made its way to the Internet,Chen and his wife,Yuan Weijing,sustained beatings with lingering injuries,according to rights advocates.

Details of Chen’s escape remain murky,but supporters say he was aided by at least one of the guards sympathetic to his plight. They say that the night before his escape,he discussed his plans with supporters via cellphone – remarkable given that the guards had tried to ensure he was cut off from the outside world. As part of the plan,his wife stayed behind to distract the guards who were stationed outside their front door.

After scaling the wall outside his home,Chen reportedly took 20 hours to reach a pre-determined pickup spot. From there He Peirong,a rights activist from Nanjing,drove Chen to Beijing,according to her acount on her microblog. “Now Chen Guangcheng is either in a safe place or in the hands of State Security in Beijing,” she wrote Friday shortly before the authorities took her away from her home.

According to Hu Jia,a well-known dissident and AIDS activist who met Chen in Beijing last week,Chen spent three days protected by a loose network of supporters. Hu,himself under constant surveillance,said the network consisted of five people. “It was decided that there was only one place in China that is absolutely safe,and that’s the US Embassy,” Hu said.

He said he was certain Chen had made it to the embassy because on Friday he received the predetermined code confirming Chen had made it there. China Aid,a Christian organisation in Texas,also helped coordinate the effort to bring Chen to safety. The president of China Aid,Bob Fu,said he was in frequent contact with Chen and his supporters.

Activists worried about the inevitable backlash,which by Saturday appeared to be gaining momentum. Last Thursday,Chen’s brother was taken away by local authorities,who were also said to be seeking his son’s arrest. Human rights advocates say they fear Chen’s wife and mother may also be in grave danger.

Besides He, Guo Yushan,a scholar and activist in Beijing,went missing on Friday. And shortly after talking to a reporter on Saturday,Hu,the AIDS activist,was taken away by the police,his wife said.