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Will Deatherage: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. My name is Will Deatherage, the producer. Joining me as always is Chen Guangcheng.
Chen Guangcheng: Hello everyone. Hello, Will. I’m glad to see you here again today.
W: Yeah, and today we’ll be following up on a topic that we’ve spoken about. Guangcheng, can you tell us about the person we’ll be talking about?
G: Yes, yes. I think our listeners still remember [hearing] about my friend. His name is Jie Lijian.
W: Can you spell his name, Guangcheng?
G: J-I-E L-I-J-I-A-N. He did the protest in New York, and then he was driving back to California. When he was driving through Utah, someone hit his car with an SUV. And later, you know, they found a tracker on his car.
W: Right.
G: And because the CCP said July 1st is CCP’s birthday. So the activist protested about this in New York. So yesterday I called him and asked his details. He said he worked in Flushing, Queens, that is the Chinatown, big Chinatown now. And he saw 3 men follow him on the street.
W: Okay, and what day was this, Guangcheng?
G: That is July 15th.
W: And what time was it? Was it during the day or at night?
G: That is afternoon.
W: Okay.
G: And when he was passing the botanical garden, 3 men allegedly ran up to him and beat him with a club or stick.
W: Okay.
G: Beat his head and legs. And, you know, he ran to the bus and blacked out on the bus.
W: Okay.
G: Yeah. Someone called 911. So then, you know, the ambulance came there, picked him up from the bus and went to the hospital. He woke up in the ICU and stayed in the hospital until July 21st.
W: Okay.
G: Yeah, so now he said he reported to [the] police station and [the] FBI, and asked them to check [on] the 3 men, where they come from, who they are. And he saw their faces, they are Asian, but because the 3 men never said something, so he doesn’t know if they speak Chinese or a different language; he doesn’t know. But I think they came from mainland China, the CCP used them.
W: Before we go any further, we need to remind our listeners that these are allegations
that it’s the CCP committing this, but it certainly— it wouldn’t surprise you, Guangcheng, if they found a connection, right?
G: Yes. So he said the police are checking the cameras on the street. So yeah, we hope they can get them.
W: Yeah.
G: And you know, someone in Taiwan, you know, allegedly beat a pro-democracy advocate in the hotel. Yeah. So that person came from Hong Kong. Later we got some news, you know, allegedly some organization gave him 50,000 Hong Kong dollars. And you know, after he hit the person in the hotel, he wrote a text [that] said, “I finished my job.” And then the response said, “Okay, leave Taiwan.”
So of course now, you know, the Taiwanese police prevented him from leaving. So I think Taiwan’s police responded very quick. So why, in the US, the police have been unable to arrest anyone who has harassed Jie Lijian? Yeah, I hope this time, you know, they should be easy to find because they did that on the street and…
W: In broad daylight, right?
G: Yeah.
W: And if it is the CCP connected to this, which we believe, why this man? Why are they going after him so much? They tried ramming his car. They’ve tried beating him in the head. Why?
G: Yeah, I think just because he is involved with a lot of protests in the US now. And if we just think about this year, the CCP focused on him, right? On Jie Lijian a lot. But if we think about 5 years, 10 years like this, the CCP did a lot.
For example, you know, 4 years ago, the CCP allegedly used someone to kill the attorney in Queens too. Before, I think we recorded about this.
W: Yep, we did.
G: Li Jinjin, right? Yeah, someone killed him in his office. Because he was part of Tiananmen Square protests 37 years ago.
W: Right.
G: Yeah, so you can see, yeah, [it’s] not just one case in the US. And when Xi Jinping visited California like 3 years ago, allegedly, the CCP ordered more than 1,000 people in California and beat the protesters there, too. And remember before [what] we mentioned about my case, you know, someone put the mouse poison in our kitchen, right?
So yeah, the CCP always tries to use this to threaten the people who oppose the CCP.
W: And Guangcheng, we’ve covered in previous episodes that in LA and New York, the CCP has a large presence there. Is that right?
G: Yeah, yeah. Of course, that is illegal. They allegedly have set up their own surveillance stations in those cities. Yeah, that is illegal, but that is happening. So I think we should ask our government to keep CCP’s thugs away. We cannot let the CCP threaten the people, to beat the people in our country.
W: Right. Guangcheng, do you know if the FBI is taking these cases seriously or if there’s any progress being made?
G: From my information, you know, [the] FBI responds very, very, very slowly. They told me they reported to them a lot of times, but no response. So we hope our listeners can call the congressmen or senators to ask them to encourage the FBI to look into these cases.
W: Yeah, and we encourage all our listeners to keep up to date with the latest news in Chinese human rights atrocities, especially ones that are affecting us in the United States. And you can find that on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu.
G: Yes, hopefully with awareness we can put an end to that.
W: Alrighty, well, thank you everybody for listening to another episode of The Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. Thank you, Guangcheng.
G: Thank you, Will. Thank you, everyone.
Coming soon, a new documentary follows Chen Guangcheng as he travels to California to meet artist Chen Weiming at Liberty Sculpture Park, where powerful works of art confront the reality of human rights abuses under the Chinese Communist Party. Through their encounter, the film highlights the cost of speaking truth under authoritarianism and the enduring role of art and witness in the fight for freedom. Stay tuned for its release, coming soon.