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But the central government has never shown much inclination to stop the authorities in Shandong province's Linyi city, which oversees Chen's village of Dongshigu. The Chinese government has a long history of ignoring its own laws. "The fact is that the Chinese central government of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao passively or actively condoned, if not outright encouraged local government officials and security forces in Shandong to victimize Chen Guangcheng and his family for years," said Human Rights Watch researcher Phelim Kine. "The unlawful confinement and abuse endured by Chen Guangcheng and his family and now his subsequent escape only heightens justifiable domestic and international concerns about the state of rule of law in China," Kine said in emailed comments. Chen angered local authorities after documenting forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and other abuses in his rural community, but he was sentenced for allegedly instigating an unrelated attack on government offices and organizing a group of people to disrupt traffic. Chen's documentation and the international media attention it drew at the time had prompted the National Population and Family Planning Commission to investigate. The agency validated Chen's claims and said in late 2005 that some Linyi officials had been punished, with some of them removed from their posts and others detained. However, once Chen started getting in trouble with the local officials during the ensuing year, the national agency looked the other way. "We have no information about Mr. Chen Guangcheng," agency spokesman Hao Hongcai said in July 2006. "This issue now belongs to the local authorities."
In a video apparently shot last week after his escape, Chen also urged Premier Wen Jiabao to punish the local authorities, saying people were not clear if the violations were the acts of local officials or ordered by the central government. "I think you should give people a clear answer in the near future," Chen said. "If we start an investigation and tell the truth to the people, the result is obvious. If you continue to ignore it, what will people think?"
[Associated
Press;
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