U.S. Envoy Asks China To Release Activist

Ellen R. Sauerbrey is an assistant secretary of state.

BEIJING, Aug. 10 -- A top U.S. diplomat said Thursday that she had urged Chinese officials to release a blind rural lawyer who was detained after exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in eastern China.

Assistant Secretary of State Ellen R. Sauerbrey told reporters that she raised the case of Chen Guangcheng on the sidelines of the China-U.S. Global Issues Forum, being held in Beijing.

"We believe that there has been a certain violation of normal standards and are urging China to release him from imprisonment," said Sauerbrey, who is in charge of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Chen is a self-taught lawyer whose work drew unwelcome attention to the government's family planning policies, embarrassing officials in eastern China. He has been charged with destroying public property and disrupting traffic in what rights activists say is a politically motivated case. He was arrested and charged in June but has been under house arrest or in detention since last September.

"For China's own reputation," Sauerbrey said, "our hope is just that if we keep a focus on the issue, that China will recognize that it is in their best interest to release this gentleman from jail."

Sauerbrey said the United States and China were both members of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development, which maintains that families have the right to make their own decisions about the number of children they will have. "We encourage China at every opportunity to live up to that commitment and to not involve itself in coercive measures, abortion, sterilization," she said.