Chen Guangcheng is in the US embassy in Beijing!!

Originally Posted by Mr T

First, who said they were "secret state police"? I've read reports that said many of his guards are hired hands. Second, even professionals make mistakes. That's why people escape prison. Chen might have been heavily guarded, but there wasn't an electrified fence with watchtowers running around his house.

But maybe you're right. Maybe this is all yet an international Illuminati conspiracy to make China look bad. Chen was never under house arrest. His child really wasn't banned from going to school. International news reporters who have tried to visit him weren't actually obstructed from going to his house. The people who "assaulted" Christian Bale were actually actors and the whole thing was filmed in Wyoming. Yes, it's so clear now....

I was playing on anti-China stereotypes. So if you want proof, ask your side. China is supposedly full of secret police and neighbors watch and report on one another according to those stereotypes. So how did he escape will the brutal Chinese totalitarian machine watching his every move. Christian Bale? Was he a special world leader to you? He was an actor looking for publicity. I saw that footage and he wasn't knocked down and hit in the head like he said. Maybe they didn't catch that footage. How convenient for them to have cameras ready to record for publicity and they didn't catch him being brutalized so he can use that to rehabilitate his notorious explosive temper image he has throughout the West.

Sampan, I'm afraid that I'm not sure what you're asking for. You said that I made a claim about the legality of Mr Chen's "home detention order" and that, amongst other things, I needed to provide a copy of it. As far as I understand it, there is no legal, written detention order. That was my point. I wasn't suggesting that the legal document that led to his detention at home was legally flawed, I was indicating my understanding that there is no legal document authorising his detention. I.e. that Chen was being held at the whim of the authorities, not by a legal power.

If you know that there is a legal order authorising Chen's home detention, I would be very grateful if you could post it. But assuming for a moment that you're not sure there is an order, there is surely the theoretical possibility that there is no order, even if you believe there must be one. In the event there is no order, how am I to prove there is no order - let alone provide a copy of it? You also seem to be suggesting that I know there's a legal document authorising Chen's detention but am choosing to pretend there isn't one. That doesn't make any sense to me.

However, I can give you the opinion of Professor Jerome Cohen, who is a professor law at New York University School of Law. He's very knowledgeable about Chinese law - he teaches on it.

This was part of the evidence he gave to Congress last year.

A third myth is that there must be some purported legal justification for the suffering that the Chen household has endured since his release from prison on September 9, 2010. Governments, even the Chinese government, normally like to maintain some veneer of plausible legitimacy for their misconduct, however thin it might be. The Chinese law enforcement agencies, in justifying many of their tactics, have taken advantage of every exception, ambiguity and gap in the current Criminal Procedure Law. Yet no such justification has come to my knowledge in this case, which seems to have exceeded the bounds of police ingenuity.

Chen was not sentenced to a deprivation of political rights that would extend beyond his prison sentence and might be proffered, though wrongly, in support of his home imprisonment. There is no indication that he has been subjected to the notorious “residential surveillance,” a severe house arrest measure that might be expanded in the forthcoming revision of the Criminal Procedure Law, and even that criminal sanction would have expired after six months.

Now if you're saying that you know Professor Cohen is a very poor academic and has been shown to be wrong on Chinese law again and again, I can understand if you're sceptical of what he has to say. But I think it fair for me defer to his judgement. Of course I'm absolutely open to reading the opinions of other legal academics.

Is setting a 24 hour deadline for the conclusion of this discussion of 1.50pm (UK time) really appropriate? First, it seems that you may have misunderstood my point. Second, tomorrow is Monday, and I'm afraid that I'm very busy with work all this week (some late nights too, quite probably). I'm sure you're just as busy yourself and wouldn't have the time to be hovering on the website tomorrow morning and lunchtime.

Mr. T, you need to wake up! Current government of China is the most popular government in Chinese history. Also, PLA is much more popular than the old UK solders in Hongkong. I give you the proof-May Day Open Base in Hongkong:

http://pic.news.china.com/news/html/...121403.htm#pic

Shxt happens everywhere, you just make a big deal of nothing!

Originally Posted by Mr T

Sampan, I'm afraid that I'm not sure what you're asking for. You said that I made a claim about the legality of Mr Chen's "home detention order" and that, amongst other things, I needed to provide a copy of it. As far as I understand it, there is no legal, written detention order. That was my point. I wasn't suggesting that the legal document that led to his detention at home was legally flawed, I was indicating my understanding that there is no legal document authorising his detention. I.e. that Chen was being held at the whim of the authorities, not by a legal power.

If you know that there is a legal order authorising Chen's home detention, I would be very grateful if you could post it. But assuming for a moment that you're not sure there is an order, there is surely the theoretical possibility that there is no order, even if you believe there must be one. In the event there is no order, how am I to prove there is no order - let alone provide a copy of it? You also seem to be suggesting that I know there's a legal document authorising Chen's detention but am choosing to pretend there isn't one. That doesn't make any sense to me.

However, I can give you the opinion of Professor Jerome Cohen, who is a professor law at New York University School of Law. He's very knowledgeable about Chinese law - he teaches on it.

This was part of the evidence he gave to Congress last year.



Now if you're saying that you know Professor Cohen is a very poor academic and has been shown to be wrong on Chinese law again and again, I can understand if you're sceptical of what he has to say. But I think it fair for me defer to his judgement. Of course I'm absolutely open to reading the opinions of other legal academics.

Is setting a 24 hour deadline for the conclusion of this discussion of 1.50pm (UK time) really appropriate? First, it seems that you may have misunderstood my point. Second, tomorrow is Monday, and I'm afraid that I'm very busy with work all this week (some late nights too, quite probably). I'm sure you're just as busy yourself and wouldn't have the time to be hovering on the website tomorrow morning and lunchtime.

Before going any further let us remind ourselves why we are here. A review of your posts in this thread show a tone which is heavily personalised and aggressive towards all other posters who have taken a position contrary to your own. More specifically, you have questioned the legality of the operation of the Chinese Legal system. This is a form of country bashing and both infractions are serious breaches of the rules and many members have been banned or suspended in the past for breaching them.

In this instance you have been challenged to back up your assertion with prima facie evidence, as previously described or to retract.

After reading your response, It is plain that no prima facie evidence has been presented and that you instead have chosen to rely on the opinion of an overseas Academic who is not and has never been a party to the case. I have not read the record you link too, but I have studied the section you have quoted as being relevant. Here Mr Cohen is himself reticent to be definitive and qualifies his statements with terms such as "to my knowledge" "seems" and "no indication"
If there are other sections of his testimony that you think should be brought to my attention you are welcome to do so.
Mr Cohen appears to be saying that while he cannot prove the legality of Chen's detention under Chinese law, he cannot claim to be able to disprove it either.

This is considerably short of the position you have taken.

The question then remains whether you are now saying that you simply cite the position of Mr Cohen's personal opinion, which I would be prepared to accept as a retraction, or that you still stick with your original position?

I do agree that a time scale of midday today is unlikely to be convenient for any working person and so I will extend the deadline for you until 9am BST Wednesday 2nd May.

Originally Posted by SampanViking

The question then remains whether you are now saying that you simply cite the position of Mr Cohen's personal opinion, which I would be prepared to accept as a retraction, or that you still stick with your original position?

I'm still not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that because I'm unable to satisfy you that Chen was detained illegally I cannot express any opinion that was/might have been the case? Or that I can hold a similar view to Professor Cohen, that there was no known power in effect that authorised his detention?

Originally Posted by Mr T

I'm still not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that because I'm unable to satisfy you that Chen was detained illegally I cannot express any opinion that was/might have been the case? Or that I can hold a similar view to Professor Cohen, that there was no known power in effect that authorised his detention?

Of course you can express a personal opinion (in so far that it is not in breach of the forum rules, which of course country bashing is on SDF). If however you present a highly contentious opinion as fact, you must expect to be challenged hard on it and be able to support it with fact. This is exactly what you have presented and you have been challenged to support it as previously described.
If you are saying that your personal opinion is that of Mr Cohen's and no more than a personal opinion, then; as I said yesterday, I will be prepared to accept this as a retraction. You will need to state this unambiguously though before 9am Wednesday 2nd May BST.

If that's all you want to hear from me, I'm happy to say that I was expressing my own opinion that Chen Guangcheng was held under house arrest without legal authority, a line that Professor Cohen followed when he spoke to Congress. I'm happy to set out my reasoning (again) if anyone wants me to clarify.

I would also say that I don't think the house arrest was ordered at the national level. It seems more likely that this was a decision taken at the local level.

Good. We can draw a line and move on. I would however caution you against loose language in a thread of this sort and definitely to adopt a less confrontational tone when responding to other members comments.

In case anybody is wondering why I have taken such a dim view of this matter, it is very simple.
The Chen affair, when it boils down to basics, is now all about legal sovereignty and legitimacy. Anything that appears to question a nations sovereignty and legitimacy, especially in respect of how it administers legal justice to its citizens, is simply a form of country bashing and that is expressly against the rules of the forum.
I want very much for this thread to remain open and I will come down very hard on anybody who tries to derail it and get it closed.

And you don't know if that's spin from the media. I just read about how Chen evaded 100 guards and ran with his family on foot into a forest trying escape capture. Yeah like their accounts that Seal Team Six took 45 minutes to kill four people including Bin Laden. Or Jessica Lynch's Rambo moment. Let's use some of the logic used by some posters in here about the length of time it takes for Chinese TV to report on world events as if there's some agenda going on. I didn't see US TV reporting on Chen until Monday three days after it hit the internet.

China should just deport his entire family and let the U.S. take him in.

Is China really making big deal about it. The only ones making Chen seem important to date is the West. I've really heard nothing about how China views him excpet he's under scrunity. Given what his cause is, it's not really political. If you listen to the West no protests are allowed and there always a brutal crackdown. No, China supposedly has over a 100,000 protests year mostly about economics and quality of life. And when you hear about those, the government seems to a lot of times submit. It's the politically motivated ones that the government drops the hammer. When news broke that Chen was missing, these very human rights organizations supposedly behind this said Chen just wanted to live like everyone else and wasn't seeking to leave China. Now if you listen to the Western media, it's totally the opposite. If he's seeking to leave, his cause is pointless now. He ain't going to be doing anything significant except as a propaganda piece for foreign anti-China agendas.

What's interesting is that there's no consensus about how the situation will pan out. Some people have suggested that negotiations are already going on and that a deal could be reached in a few days. Others are more sceptical. There's an extra problem if Chen doesn't want to leave China.

Originally Posted by gjy2105

China should just deport his entire family and let the U.S. take him in.

"Deported" is the wrong word. They can't be deported because they're Chinese citizens. A country deports foreign citizens that no longer have the legal right to be there - e.g. no visa, visa has expired/been withdrawn. The Chinese government would have to exile or banish them - assuming there is a legal provision to do that. A simpler way would be to convince them to leave, tear up their passports and refuse to issue new ones. So they'd still be Chinese citizens but without the means to return to China.

Originally Posted by AssassinsMace

I just read about how Chen evaded 100 guards and ran with his family on foot into a forest trying escape capture.

Who said that? The reports I've seen said his family are still in their village.

Originally Posted by Mr T

Who said that? The reports I've seen said his family are still in their village.

I saw it this morning on Good Morning America which they were quoting a newspaper article that they had on the screen. I think it was Reuters.

Just as I'm writing this I'm watching what I DVRed of NBC Today Show this morning and they go back to the original statement that Chen doesn't want to leave. The media is contradicting themselves.

I really like your idea.