A blind 'barefoot lawyer' has infuriated half the officials in Shandong Province with a case that highlights many of China's unfinished civil reforms: humane treatment, due process, and rule of law. For Chen Guangcheng — who has been under siege and arrest for a year- – the problem is that he is that case. . . . [I]n 2005, his legal zeal began to get him in trouble. Chen's crusade to halt the forced detention and sterilization of women in order to meet local quotas — a practice that has largely stopped in most of China — did not go over well in Linyi, where bonds are tight between officials, police, and hired thugs, much like the rural segregated US South of 50 years ago. Chen has lived under house arrest for a year, unable to talk to the outside world, his lawyers and friends beaten and in jail facing dubious charges of disturbing public order. (Christian Science Monitor, Friday)

Today's China: where a commitment to justice lands you in big trouble.

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