{"id":136703,"date":"2012-05-22T23:20:25","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T06:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=136703"},"modified":"2012-05-22T23:27:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T06:27:55","slug":"chen-guangcheng-begins-life-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/05\/chen-guangcheng-begins-life-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Chen Guangcheng Begins Life in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

At The Daily Beast, Melinda Liu described the beginning of Chen Guangcheng and his family’s life in New York<\/strong><\/a> as they embraced the spring sunshine while avoiding, for now, the glare of the media.<\/p>\n

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Feeling the warm sun on his face, blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng relaxed in an outdoor playground with his family Sunday, basking in perfect spring weather\u2014and not having to worry about being beaten or harassed for the first time in years.<\/p>\n

Chen, his wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two kids started a new life in a quiet, leafy Greenwich Village neighborhood full of university students sunbathing in grassy parks and yuppies walking their dogs. It’s a long way from their rural Shandong farmhouse\u2014a virtual prison with blocked-up windows, surveillance cameras, and dozens of guards who threatened and beat would-be visitors \u2026.<\/p>\n

A TV-satellite truck has materialized outside Chen’s apartment block, which has also been staked out by reporters and photographers who scrambled when he appeared in the playground. (“It’s exciting. I’ve never heard so many police sirens as I did last night,” said one of Chen’s new neighbors about his arrival in the building.) But Chen didn’t want to grant media interviews on their first day in America. He and his wife are especially concerned about protecting the privacy of their 10-year-old son, Chen Kerui\u2014who’d lived separately from his parents for several years so his father’s imprisonment and harassment wouldn’t disrupt his schooling\u2014and their vivacious 6-year-old daughter, Chen Kesi, who succumbed to her jet lag by early evening. “She was fast asleep on the couch when I first arrived,” said one visitor, “but then she woke up and greeted me full of giggles.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Speaking to WNYC’s Brian Lehrer,\u00a0Jerome Cohen explained Chen’s likely course of study at New York University<\/strong><\/a>, his long term ambitions, and the negotiation process that brought the family to the US. Cohen also tactfully addressed the risk of Chen becoming a political pinball, and the question of how neatly his work against forced abortion and sterilisation might fit an American pro-life agenda. Chen, he said, “understands China’s need for birth control”, and was concerned primarily with civil liberties. “I don’t think,” he added, “we should associate Mr. Chen with one specific religious organization or with one particular political cause, however important it is.”<\/p>\n