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Blind Activist Seized in Beijing

Local authorities on Tuesday seized a rural activist who has been leading a high-profile legal campaign against the use of forced sterilization and abortion in China, in an apparent effort to block him from meeting with senior government officials who had expressed support for his cause.

Several men in plain clothes grabbed Chen when he left an apartment building on Tuesday afternoon, witnesses said. The men did not identify themselves, and Chen resisted, shouting for help as they dragged him across a parking lot and pushed him headfirst into an unmarked car with tinted windows, the witnesses said. A small group of people, upset by seeing the rough treatment, surrounded the vehicle and prevented it from driving away. As two men held Chen down in the back seat, he could be heard screaming and appeared to be in pain.

The detention of Chen Guangcheng, 34, a blind peasant who has been preparing a class-action lawsuit to challenge population-control abuses in the eastern city of Linyi, occurred a few days after he arrived in Beijing for meetings with lawyers and journalists. He was seized just as the Chinese government opened an international legal conference here.