Blind activist Chen Guangcheng pleads to leave China

However Mr Chen raised the stakes by demanding that Hillary Clinton, the US
Secretary of State, provide him with safe passage out of America.

“My fervent hope is that it would be possible for me and my family to leave
for the US on Hillary Clinton’s plane,” Mr Chen told the Daily Beast.

Mr Chen previously agreed to a deal allowing him to stay in China and study
law at university, with reassurances from authorities.

Mr Chen initially said he had assurances that he would be safe in China –
which is what U.S. officials said he wanted – but hours later he said he
feared for his family’s safety unless they are all spirited abroad. He also
said he felt pressured to leave, both by Chinese and U.S. officials.

“We asked him was he ready to leave. He jumped up very excited and said
‘let’s go’ in front of many many witnesses,” Locke said.

He added that US officials had promised to stay with him in the hospital, but
that they had not. “I asked my lawyer to come and he is now on the way,”
he said.

In the wake of Mr Chen’s escape, when he vaulted over eight walls and then
crawled over nine miles with a broken leg, his wife was taken to a police
station in Shandong. “She was nearly beaten to death. She was tied to a
chair in the police station for two days,” said Mr Chen.

The US, meanwhile, has pledged to continue to try to protect Mr Chen.

“We are going to continue to monitor his case very closely. We’re going
to continue to seek assurances that the commitments that were made in this
case become reality or are followed through on. And going forward, we are
going to make sure that we keep a very close eye on it,” said Mark
Toner, deputy spokesman at the State Department “There have been
commitments made to his education, to reunification with his family. We’re
going to continue to monitor this very closely.

We’re going to continue to seek access to him so that we can ensure that those
commitments are followed through and that he’s not under threat.”

The spokesman said it was “incorrect” to suggest that American
officials had abandoned Mr Chen after dropping him at the Chaoyang Hospital
in Beijing.

“That’s incorrect, as far as I know. Again, I don’t want to get into a
tit-for-tat here because I’m obviously not in Beijing. My understanding is
that there were U.S. officials in the building. I believe some of his
medical team was, in fact, with him – at the hospital, rather.”

Asked if the US would now grant Mr Chen political asylum if – as reports
emerged from Beijing now suggest – Mr Chen changed his mind, the spokesman
said it was too early to comment.

“That’s just – it’s very speculative at this case. I mean, we’re going
to continue to have conversations with him. We’re going to continue to have
access to him. But let’s try to get greater clarity on what he’s saying
before we talk about various permutations.”

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