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Will Deatherage: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. This is Will Dethridge, the producer. Joining me as always is Chen Guangcheng.
Chen Guangcheng: Hello everyone, I’m glad to see you here again.
W: And today we’re going to cover an update on a human rights activist in communist China that we’ve done some reporting on in the past. Guangcheng, can you first talk about… introduce who we’re going to talk about today?
G: Yeah, today we will talk about the attorney, his name is Xie Yang. He lives in Hunan Province, Changsha City. And when the CCP put me and my family under house arrest, and a lot of netizens traveled to my village to see me, and they used this way to give the CCP pressure.
W: Netizen; just really quick, because it’s been a long time since we used the word. Can you describe what a netizen is?
G: “Netizens” [are] the people who protest the CCP online. Yeah, of course, the CCP ordered the thugs to beat them and stole all their belongings. And when they wrote their experience on social media, Xie Yang read it. But he didn’t believe the CCP was doing that.
W: So at the time, was Xie Yang a human rights lawyer or were they just a regular?
G: At that time, he’s a regular lawyer.
W: Okay, gotcha.
G: Yeah. And he didn’t believe that was happening. His friend placed a bet with Xie Yang
W: What was the bet?
G: He said, “Okay, I can buy the tickets for you. You can fly to Shandong, try to visit Chen Guangcheng. If you come close to Guangcheng’s village, take a picture and I will give you 20,000 RMB.”
W: Okay.
G: “And if you can take a picture in the village office, I will give you 40,000 RMB. If you can take a picture stand[ing] with Guangcheng’s gate, I will give you 80,000. If you can take a picture with Guangcheng and send it to me, I will give you 100,000.”
W: Okay.
G: So Xie Yang traveled to my village, but 2 miles away, he found some thugs who were following him. Then, 1 mile away from my village, he found a small restaurant and ate something.
W: Okay.
And watched the thugs who were following him. And later he saw somebody fixing [a] bicycle and he came there, talked to him, said, “I need a bicycle, I can give you money.” So he bought the used bicycle.
W: Guangcheng, why was he getting the bicycle?
G: Because he walked from 2 miles away to my village.
W: Oh, okay, So he was walking.
G: Yeah, he [was] tired; bicycle may be easier to get close to my village.
W: Okay.
G: And then he arrived east of the village. He saw the thugs [had] surrounded the whole village. And then he saw two people working in the field.
W: Okay.
G: And asked him, he said, “Oh, I want to visit Chen Guangcheng. Do you know where he lives?” And the person who worked in the field, he was my neighbor, and he lived behind my house.
W: Okay.
G: So he said, “Oh, that is so dangerous. You should go away very quick. If they know you came here to try to visit Chen Guangcheng, they will beat you.”
And he understands the situation and said, “If you can, please tell Guangcheng I tried to visit, but I cannot.” And then he gives the bicycle to my neighbor and tried to go east. And just when he was 600 feet away from my neighbor, the thugs arrested him and beat him and stole all his money.
W: Wow.
G: All his bank cards, and even his lawyer license. They put a black bag over his head and [for] 3 days he [could not] see anything.
W: They captured him for 3 days with the black bag over his head?
G: Yes.
W: Oh my gosh.
G: So he cannot see who beat him, right? Cannot see where he is. And after 3 days, the thugs even take away his clothes. And then they drive him somewhere and threw him in the pond.
W: Geez!
G: And, you know, he thinks maybe they will kill him there. But after several minutes, he took off the black bag. But if he came to anywhere to try to get support, [it’s] very difficult, right?
W: Right, because he had no clothes.
G: And he then found a way to contact his friend online and borrow a little money to buy the ticket to come back to Hunan Province, Changsha City.
W: Wow.
G: And he came back to his wife’s office first, and when he came in, his wife didn’t know who he [was]. Looks like… different than before, you know.
W: Wow.
G: Yeah, that is his experience.
W: All because he tried to visit you.
G: Yeah. After that, he believed [that] it is happening in my village. He believed how evil the CCP is.
They just don’t know. And since that time, he became a human rights lawyer. And today I want to let our listeners know, just because he became the human [rights] lawyer, he has become [an] enemy of the CCP. And, you know, later the CCP kidnapped, captured him and put him in [a] black jail [for a] long time.
And he thinks he will die. He [doesn’t] know where he is. He just tried to throw a note out of the black jail’s small window to let his wife and the children understand he’s still alive.
W: Guangcheng, when was this again?
G: In 2013.
W: Gotcha. Okay.
The Center for Human Rights has published countless articles and reports on issues facing China, the U.S., and the world. In a 2023 report, Emily Burton examines the continuing influence of Confucius Institutes in American universities, exposing how many have rebranded rather than truly severing ties with the Chinese Communist Party.