Faith of the Fathers

Friday, May 04, 2012

The following excerpts are from the Townhall.com article, "Obama's Disgraceful Abandonment of Chen Guangcheng" by columnist Mona Charen :

It's hard to know which is worse: one's grief over Chen Guangcheng's fate or the fury over the Obama administration's abandonment of him to that fate.
Chen was already an internationally known human rights activist when he remarkably showed up at the U.S. embassy in Beijing last week seeking refuge. A blind, self-taught lawyer from Shandong province, Chen had been held prisoner for 19 months for the crime of publicizing Chinese atrocities by those enforcing the "one child" policy. Chen had chosen a moonless night (his captors were not blind) to scale several high walls and stumble his way to a predetermined meeting place where Christian friends would help him make the harrowing 300-mile journey to Beijing. He told supporters that he fell 200 times that night -- breaking a foot in the process.
At some point, it's not clear exactly where or when, U.S. officials did help Chen get to the embassy -- which is gratifying. What happened next was not.

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The following excerpts are from the Townhall.com article, "Obama Fails On Human Rights" by columnist Linda Chavez:

The Obama administration's record on human rights, never strong, just got a whole lot worse. This week's dramatic saga of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng's escape from house arrest in Shandong province to safety inside the U.S. Embassy to the embassy's role in handing him over to Chinese authorities is a disgraceful tale. Once again, the Obama administration has chosen to put human rights violations on the back burner, as it has nearly every time it has been asked for help, whether from Iranian protesters in 2009 or Syrian freedom fighters today.
Chen's fate was complicated by the arrival in Beijing of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Wednesday. U.S. diplomats seemed eager to shove Chen out the embassy door before the two Obama officials began their strategic and economic talks with Chinese leaders. It was clear the administration found Chen's asylum seeking embarrassing.

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