Chen Guangcheng Releases Video - Forced Abortion in China ‘Still Extensively Exists’

NEW YORK, -- Blind activist Cheng Guangcheng, whose dramatic escape from house arrest and flight to New York captured the attention of the world in May of this year, has issued a powerful video to call the Chinese Communist Party to account for crimes committed against the Chinese people. These include crimes committed against Chen's own family, especially Chen Kegui, Chen's nephew who was just given a 3-year jail sentence for defending himself when officials broke into his house and savagely beat him and his parents. Instead of improving, Chen said that "the human rights situation in China is, in fact, getting worse . . . in China, no one is safe."

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Click to view video online. Chen warned new Chinese President Xi Jinping that change must come to China, but "it is a matter of whether China will have the transition in a peaceful way or a violent way."

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He stated that "[t]he United States, in particular, as a beacon of freedom, needs to play a leading role" in shifting the focus of the world from trade to human rights. Moreover, Chen continued, "the violence in maintaining China's One Child Policy still extensively exists. It is a sin, because life is sacred." In 2006, Chen was detained and tortured for exposing the massive, systematic use of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China. Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights without Frontiers and a good friend of Chen, stated, "Chen Guangcheng has endured incalculable suffering for human rights in China, and in particular, for the rights of women not to be forcibly aborted or sterilized. He has confirmed that these barbaric practices are still being used 'extensively.' Indeed, he has taken a bold step in declaring that the violence against women and babies committed in connection with the coercive enforcement of the One Child Policy 'is a sin, because life is sacred.'" Littlejohn continued, "The One Child Policy is perhaps the most hated of all the official policies in China. It is the cause of deep social unrest simmering just beneath the surface of Chinese society. No policy this unjust can last forever. The leaders of the United States should join Chen in calling for a peaceful transition away from policies that are oppressing and terrorizing the people of China, who are one fifth of the population of the earth." Sign a petition to end forced abortion in China here.

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