Chen Ya, who is now eight, was taken away by officials in Sanzao
county in the southern province of Guangdong in 2009, according to Chen
Fengqiang, his foster father.
Despite being a toddler
with developmental problems, the boy was kept alone in a windowless 40
sq ft cell until April, when he was finally released into Mr Chen’s
care.
Today, the boy “cannot walk very far and his head shakes,” said Mr Chen.
“He
cannot talk so I do not know what happened to him. But you can imagine
what it is like for a four-year-old child to be taken and shut away,” he
said.
“There are no bruises on his body, so I do not
know whether he was abused, but if you raise your hand, he curls into a
ball afraid,” he added.
Mr Chen could not explain why the authorities had chosen to put the boy in solitary confinement. On Monday he travelled to the regional capital, Guangzhou, to engage a new lawyer, Wu Kuiming, to seek redress.
“This is a cruel method that the government uses when it wants to control protesters,” said Mr Wu. “But I do not know what they wanted to achieve by locking up a four-year-old boy,” he added.
Both Mr Chen, 54, and his former partner, the boy’s mother, Wei Lipei, 40, have been thorns in the side of the local government for over a decade.
Since 2002, the couple have vigorously protested the seizure of their land by the local government, who they say paid them scant compensation.
Mr Chen has two other children by a previous partner, a 13-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. He said Ms Wei had told him that Chen Ya was not his son, but that he had not taken a paternity test.
As the couple fell deeper into the frustrating cycle of protesting their plight to the various branches of the Chinese government, their children were increasingly left to fend for themselves.
Chen Ya, because of his disability, was often taken along to protests, however, in order to exploit public sympathy.
In 2008, while Mr Chen was protesting in Beijing, Ms Wei then disappeared.
He claimed she was put in detention. At that point the three children were cared for by a nanny from the neighbourhood committee.
The
following year, however, Chen Ya was taken away to a detention centre
run by a special police squad that usually targets protesters. The
centre was originally built in the 1960s as a labour camp.
In the meantime, Mr Chen was also imprisoned separately in 2010 for two years in another city.
Two other protesters confirmed that they had seen the boy in a cell in the centre last year.
Another lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said he had accompanied Mr Chen to the centre in December to try to free the boy.
Illegal detention centres are common in China but are routinely denied by the authorities.
“I have never heard of this case but I can assure you nothing like this would happen in this area,” said a policeman at Jingwan district who declined to give his name. He added that a colleague in Sanzao had never heard of the detention facility.
Four officials in Sanzao county denied all knowledge of the case. One suggested contacting the local Propaganda bureau.
The fifth official, Wu Jing, from the Civil Administration bureau, said he had not heard of the boy and to contact the head of the local Harmony Maintenance bureau, whose name he gave as Mr Tang.
“Who gave you my number?” said Mr Tang angrily, upon answering the phone.
“If Mr Wu gave you my number, you should ask him about the case, he knows better than me,” he added, before hanging up and refusing to answer further calls.
In 2007, a reporter for Reuters saw and photographed a three-year-old boy being held in a “black jail” alongside his father in the south west of Beijing. The father of the boy told him that they had been “held there for months”.
Phelim Kine, the deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, said there was evidence that the Chinese government had abducted and detained other children in the past, both with and without their parents.
He said three detainees in illegal detention centres interviewed by HRW said that they had been imprisoned with their children. One 36-year-old from Gansu province who was detained in 2008 said his facility “also detained ‘many children, boys and girls’”.
In another case, a 15-year-old girl was beaten so severely by her guards that “they knocked out one of her teeth”.
Mr Chen and his foster son appear set to continue their protest. On Sunday they were detained by police for 12 hours after mounting a protest at Guangzhou railway station. The protest was seized upon by Chinese internet users to condemn the behaviour of the local government.
Mr Chen could not explain why the authorities had chosen to put the boy in solitary confinement. On Monday he travelled to the regional capital, Guangzhou, to engage a new lawyer, Wu Kuiming, to seek redress.
“This is a cruel method that the government uses when it wants to control protesters,” said Mr Wu. “But I do not know what they wanted to achieve by locking up a four-year-old boy,” he added.
Both Mr Chen, 54, and his former partner, the boy’s mother, Wei Lipei, 40, have been thorns in the side of the local government for over a decade.
Since 2002, the couple have vigorously protested the seizure of their land by the local government, who they say paid them scant compensation.
Mr Chen has two other children by a previous partner, a 13-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. He said Ms Wei had told him that Chen Ya was not his son, but that he had not taken a paternity test.
As the couple fell deeper into the frustrating cycle of protesting their plight to the various branches of the Chinese government, their children were increasingly left to fend for themselves.
Chen Ya, because of his disability, was often taken along to protests, however, in order to exploit public sympathy.
In 2008, while Mr Chen was protesting in Beijing, Ms Wei then disappeared.
He claimed she was put in detention. At that point the three children were cared for by a nanny from the neighbourhood committee.
In the meantime, Mr Chen was also imprisoned separately in 2010 for two years in another city.
Two other protesters confirmed that they had seen the boy in a cell in the centre last year.
Another lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said he had accompanied Mr Chen to the centre in December to try to free the boy.
Illegal detention centres are common in China but are routinely denied by the authorities.
“I have never heard of this case but I can assure you nothing like this would happen in this area,” said a policeman at Jingwan district who declined to give his name. He added that a colleague in Sanzao had never heard of the detention facility.
Four officials in Sanzao county denied all knowledge of the case. One suggested contacting the local Propaganda bureau.
The fifth official, Wu Jing, from the Civil Administration bureau, said he had not heard of the boy and to contact the head of the local Harmony Maintenance bureau, whose name he gave as Mr Tang.
“Who gave you my number?” said Mr Tang angrily, upon answering the phone.
“If Mr Wu gave you my number, you should ask him about the case, he knows better than me,” he added, before hanging up and refusing to answer further calls.
In 2007, a reporter for Reuters saw and photographed a three-year-old boy being held in a “black jail” alongside his father in the south west of Beijing. The father of the boy told him that they had been “held there for months”.
Phelim Kine, the deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, said there was evidence that the Chinese government had abducted and detained other children in the past, both with and without their parents.
He said three detainees in illegal detention centres interviewed by HRW said that they had been imprisoned with their children. One 36-year-old from Gansu province who was detained in 2008 said his facility “also detained ‘many children, boys and girls’”.
In another case, a 15-year-old girl was beaten so severely by her guards that “they knocked out one of her teeth”.
Mr Chen and his foster son appear set to continue their protest. On Sunday they were detained by police for 12 hours after mounting a protest at Guangzhou railway station. The protest was seized upon by Chinese internet users to condemn the behaviour of the local government.
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