Batman Star Reaches Out to Persecuted Chinese Human Rights Activist
As many of your are probably already aware, Chen Guancheng, is a blind human rights activist who has been instrumental in speaking out against, and exposing, the One Child Policy in China. In 2006 Chen revealed that over 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations took place in Linyi County in 2005 alone (this is just ONE county in all of China); because of this Chen and his family have been brutally beaten and have been kept hostage by the Chinese government for the last year after Chen spent roughly 4 years in prison.
After many rumors a few months ago that Chen may have been dead activists across the world amped up awareness of Chen’s and his family’s situation, and not long after word was received that Chen is still alive. Not only did we hear that Chen is still alive, but that he is being treated better because of the pressure people across the world are putting on the Chinese government.
Many organizations are stepping up to demand the release of Chen Guancheng. Nationwide awareness campaigns have been taking place to shine light on China’s One Child Policy and China’s barbaric treatment of Chen. I’m so grateful that popular actor Christian Bale, from the classic film Little Women and the Batman movies, has taken action to reach out to Chen. This may seem like a small action to some, yet it has made a huge impact on creating awareness about how the Chinese government has treated Chen and the bigger issue of China’s One Child Policy and abuse of its citizens that violate that policy. I encourage you to be courageous like Christian Bale by reaching out in love and creating awareness about injustices like these.
Dignity of the Born and Unborn,
It's interesting that Christian Bale in particular is doing this, seeing as his late father was married to Gloria Steinem. I don't know what CB's views on abortion in general are, but there's an odd sort of symmetry in the fact that the closest person GS has to a living son is trying to work so that some children won't be aborted.
You couldn't pay me a million dollars to move to China. A friend of my fiance's mom has daughters who were adopted from China and we went to see their Chinese dance presentation last year. The beauty of it was marred only by the knowledge that thousands of other little girls never had a chance to dance.