ThanhPhương
- Nhà hoạt động nhân quyền, luật sư mù Trần Quang Thành sáng hôm qua đã
được cùng với vợ và hai con lên máy bay ở Bắc Kinh và tối hôm qua,
19/05/2012, đã đáp xuống sân bay Newark, New York.
Ngay
khi đặt chân tới Hoa Kỳ, luật sư Trần Quang Thành đã bày tỏ lòng biết
ơn chính phủ Mỹ và nhiều bạn bè đã giúp đỡ ông, đồng thời cũng tỏ ra hài
lòng khi thấy chính phủ Trung Quốc đã xử lý vụ này một cách «chừng mực».
Luật sư Trần Quang Thành trả lời các nhà báo ngay khi tới phi trường Newark, New York ngày 19/05/2012. REUTERS/Keith Bedford
Luật
sư Trần Quang Thành nổi tiếng vì đã dám lên tiếng tố cáo các chiến dịch
cưỡng bức triệt sản và phá thai, cũng như các vụ cướp đất ở Trung Quốc.
Ông đã bị cầm tù từ năm 2006 và bị quản thúc tại gia từ năm 2010.
Luật sư Trần Quang Thành đã trốn khỏi nơi quản
thúc tại gia vào ngày 22/4 trong một vụ đào thoát với nhiều tình tiết
rất ly kỳ và sau đó chạy vào tỵ nạn trong đại sứ quán Mỹ, vài ngày trước
khi Ngoại trưởng Hillary Clinton đến Trung Quốc để tham gia cuộc « đối thoại chiến lược và kinh tế » thường niên giữa Washington và Bắc Kinh.
Sáu ngày sau, ông Trần Quang Thành chấp nhận rời
sứ quán Mỹ để được chữa trị trong bệnh viện, nhưng ngay sau đó ông đã
tỏ ý muốn rời Trung Quốc vì không tin tưởng vào chính quyền Bắc Kinh.
Đến ngày 05/05, Hoa Kỳ và Trung Quốc loan báo thỏa thuận cho phép luật
sư Trần Quang Thành sang Mỹ.
Ông đã được đại học New York cấp một học bổng và
sẽ ở trong một tòa nhà dành cho các giáo sư và sinh viên nhận học bổng
của trường đại học này. Luật sư Trần Quang Thành cho biết từ 7 năm nay,
ông không có được một ngày yên nghỉ, cho bên ông sẽ nghỉ lấy lại sức sau
đó sẽ tập trung vào việc học.
Nhà trắng hôm qua đã hoan nghênh việc luật sư
Trần Quang Thành được rời Trung Quốc để sang Hoa Kỳ, một chuyến đi mà
mọi chi tiết đã được giữ kín cho đến phút chót. Theo lời ông Bob Fu, chủ
tịch Hiệp hội Thiên chúa giáo Mỹ ChinaAid, bản thân ông Trần Quang
Thành mãi đến phút chót mới biết là ông được đi và ông đã nhận các hộ
chiếu ngay tại sân bay Bắc Kinh. Ông Bob Fu cho biết luật sư Trần Quang
Thành « rất phấn khởi », nhưng cũng « rất lo ngại » cho gia đình còn ở lại Trung Quốc.
Thanh Phương
www.vietthuc.org
Chen Guangcheng, Blind Chinese Activist, En Route To United States
NEW YORK — A blind Chinese legal activist who was suddenly allowed to leave the country arrived in the United States on Saturday, ending a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations.
Chen Guangcheng had been hurriedly taken from a hospital hours earlier
and put on a plane for the U.S. after Chinese authorities suddenly told
him to pack and prepare to leave. He arrived Saturday evening at Newark
Liberty International Airport and was whisked to New York City, where he
will be staying.
Dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants and using crutches, his right
leg in a cast, Chen was greeted with cheers when he arrived at the
apartment in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village where he will live with his
family. The complex houses faculty and graduate students of New York
University, where Chen is expected to attend law school.
“For the past seven years, I have never had a day’s rest,” he said
through a translator, “so I have come here for a bit of recuperation for
body and in spirit.”
Chen urged the crowd to fight against injustice, and thanked the U.S.
and Chinese governments, along with the embassies of Switzerland, Canada
and France.
“After much turbulence, I have come out of Shandong,” he said, referring
to the Chinese province where he was under house arrest. The U.S. has
granted him partial citizenship rights, he said.
Chen gave a short statement, which was greeted by cheers in Mandarin and English, but did not take questions from reporters.
The departure of Chen, his wife and two children to the United States
marked the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of
mistreatment by local authorities for the self-taught activist.
After seven years of prison and house arrest, Chen made a daring escape
from his rural village in April and was given sanctuary inside the U.S.
Embassy, triggering a diplomatic standoff over his fate. With Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Beijing for annual high-level
discussions, officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to
see him have second thoughts. That forced new negotiations that led to
an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law, a goal of his, at New
York University.
“Thousands of thoughts
are surging to my mind,” Chen said before he left China. His concerns,
he said, included whether authorities would retaliate for his negotiated
departure by punishing his relatives left behind. It also was unclear
whether the government will allow him to return.
In New York, he said China had promised him protection of his rights as a citizen there.
“I am very gratified to see that the Chinese government has been dealing
with the situation with restraint and calm, and I hope to see that they
continue to open discourse and earn the respect and trust of the
people.”
Chen’s expected attendance at New York University comes from his
association with Jerome Cohen, a law professor there who advised Chen
while he was in the U.S. Embassy. The two met when Chen came to the
United States on a State Department program in 2003, and Cohen has been
staunch advocate for him since.
“I’m very happy at the news that he’s on his way and I look forward to
welcoming him and his family tonight and to working with him on his
course of study,” Cohen said.
Before he left China, Chen asked his supporters and others in the
activist community for their understanding of his desire to leave the
front lines of the rights struggle in China.
“I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand,” he said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland praised the quiet negotiations that freed him.
“We also express our appreciation for the manner in which we were able
to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen’s desire to study in the
U.S. and pursue his goals,” Nuland said in a statement.
The White House also said it was pleased with the outcome of negotiations.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it had no comment. The government’s news
agency, Xinhua, issued a brief report saying that Chen “has applied for
study in the United States via normal channels in line with the law.”
Chen’s supporters welcomed his departure. “This is great progress,” said
U.S.-based rights activist Bob Fu. “It’s a victory for freedom
fighters.”
The 40-year-old Chen is emblematic of a new breed of activists that the
Communist Party finds threatening. Often from rural and working-class
families, these “rights defenders,” as they are called, are unlike the
students and intellectuals from the elite academies and major cities of
previous democracy movements and thus could potentially appeal to
ordinary Chinese.
Chen gained recognition for crusading for the disabled and for farmers’
rights and fighting against forced abortions in his rural community.
That angered local officials, who seemed to wage a personal vendetta
against him, convicting him in 2006 on what his supporters say were
fabricated charges and then holding him for the past 20 months in
illegal house arrest.
Even with the backstage negotiations, Chen’s departure came hastily.
Chen spent the last 2 1/2 weeks in a hospital for the foot he broke
escaping house arrest. Only on Wednesday did Chinese authorities help
him complete the paperwork needed for his passport.
Chen said by telephone Saturday that he was informed at the hospital
just before noon to pack his bags to leave. Officials did not give him
and his family passports or inform them of their flight details until
after they got to the airport.
Seeming ambivalent, Chen said that he was “not happy” about leaving and
that he had a lot on his mind, including worries about retaliation
against his extended family back home. His nephew, Chen Kegui, is
accused of attempted murder after he allegedly used a kitchen knife to
attack officials who stormed his house after discovering Chen Guangcheng
was missing.
“I hope that the government will fulfill the promises it made to me, all
of its promises,” Chen said. Such promises included launching an
investigation into abuses against him and his family in Shandong
province, he said before the phone call was cut off.
Much as Chen has said he wants return to China, it remains uncertain
whether the Chinese government would bar him, as they have done with
many exiled activists.
“Chen’s departure for the U.S. does not and should not in any way mark a
`mission accomplished’ moment for the U.S. government,” said Phelim
Kine, a senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The harder,
longer-term part is ensuring his right under international law to return
to China when he sees fit.”
KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writers Didi Tang, Gillian Wong and Charles Hutzler in
Beijing, Andrew Duffelmeyer in Newark, N.J., and Matthew Lee in
Washington, and videojournalist Annie Ho in Beijing contributed to this
report.
http://www.vietthuc.org/2012/05/22/tr%E1%BA%A7n-quang-thanh-d%E1%BA%BFn-new-york-sau-m%E1%BB%99t-thang-cang-th%E1%BA%B3ng-m%E1%BB%B9-trung/
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