Chen Guangcheng’s brother missing: Chinese lawyer

BEIJING, China – The brother of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has been missing for the past two days, a lawyer said Saturday, May 26, expressing concern that he might have been detained by the authorities.

Chen Guangfu, Chen Guangcheng’s older brother, fled the family village in east China and turned up in Beijing on Thursday, but the lawyer said he disappeared almost immediately afterwards.

“We’re not able to get in touch with him,” Liu Weiguo told AFP by telephone from Shandong province, where the Chen family lives, adding this had been the case since Thursday evening, May 24.

“Nothing can be ruled out,” he said when asked if it was possible that Chen Guangfu had been detained.

Under house arrest

Chen Guangfu met a rights lawyer in the capital Thursday to discuss the case of his adult son, who is in police custody charged with attempted murder over an attack on a local official who broke into the family home.

Authorities raided the home after discovering that Chen Guangcheng had escaped following nearly two years under illegal house arrest. Chen Guangcheng later pitched up at the US embassy and last week left for the United States.

Since Chen Guangcheng’s flight to the US embassy in late April, his extended family has been effectively under house arrest in Dongshigu village.

The self-taught lawyer has repeatedly expressed fears for his family’s safety. – Agence France-Presse