HONG KONG — As the diplomatic storm around Chen Guangcheng calms, supporters and relatives of the blind activist fear a tempest of retribution, a frequent feature of Communist Party crisis management known as “settling accounts after the autumn harvest.”
The ruling party, which has had a monopoly on power since 1949, has a long history of punishing not just those who challenge or embarrass it but also their families and friends. At least half a dozen people have already been detained for questioning over their role in Chen’s escape from house arrest in Shandong province April 22 and his six-day stay at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
In addition, a Chinese lawyer who tried last week to visit Chen at a Beijing hospital said he was severely beaten by police and is under constant surveillance. Others have been visited by security agents and ordered to keep quiet and to stay away from Chen’s hospital ward.
But nearly all of those who got picked up in an initial sweep, including He Peirong, a female activist who helped transport Chen to Beijing, have been released, with warnings to watch their step.
This suggests that authorities have perhaps stepped back from or at least deferred a full-scale campaign of retribution. He, also known as “Pearl,” was detained in Nanjing, where she lives, on April 27 and sent a text message Friday saying she had been allowed to return home.
“The autumn harvest is not finished yet, so the settling of accounts hasn’t really started,” said Bob Fu, an exiled Chinese activist who runs a group called China Aid. From his base in Texas, Fu helped engineer Chen’s flight from Shandong, a heavily rural and acutely conservative province in eastern China.
Chen has pleaded for security forces to lay off family members still in Shandong, including his mother and brothers. A nephew, Chen Kegui, is missing and thought to have been arrested. He reportedly attacked and injured security officers who rushed into the house of his father and started beating those inside on the night of April 26. A Shandong lawyer, Liu Weiguo, was then threatened by local security agents after he offered to defend the nephew, Chen said.
“I want to appeal for my nephew,” Chen said in a phone interview from Beijing’s Chaoyang hospital Sunday. “He injured those people because they raided his house without any permission. He acted in self-defense.”
Chen said his mother, whose movements had been restricted, is “at home and can go out freely. But her heart is traumatized seriously.”
