Thursday, May 9, 2013

Fatherhood and New Chen Guangcheng Family Persecution

In the movie Selena, Selena's father, Abraham Quintanilla (portrayed by Edward James Olmos,) loves his daughter, family and life with enthusiasm, commitment and creativity.

Abraham is protective of Selena (portrayed by Jennifer Lopez) while also pushing her to be her best. What movies have you seen with inspiring, intimate father/daughter relationships? Write to:

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When Selena and Chris Perez fall in love, Abraham can't handle it, and in a fit of hot anger forbids the young lovers to see each other. Chris (portrayed by Jon Seda) is the guitarist for the band Selena and the Dinos. Selena and Chris meet secretly for a while. Then Selena proposes marriage. Chris accepts. They elope.

Chris waits in their Porsche get-away-car while Selena goes into her parents home first to tell Abraham about her and Chris' marriage. Abraham is not the erupting volcano they fear. He has cooled off and has become capable of acknowledging that Chris and Selena really love each other, that they are ready to be married and that he compelled them to elope. The happy couple don't need the Porsche get-away car.

But He Peirong and Chen Guangcheng needed their get-away car. He Peirong is a key member of a group of human rights activists who organize support for Guangcheng in China. Guangcheng, who became blind as a result of a childhood illness and now wears dark sunglasses, is a self-taught lawyer who in 2005 filed a class-action lawsuit against a local government for forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced as part of China’s one-child policy.

Guangcheng's lawsuit was rejected, and he was placed under house arrest in Shandong, China, with guards surrounding his house, his cell phone service cut off, access to the Internet blocked and bright lights shinning on his house at night. His wife, Yuan Weijing, and daughter were living with him under house arrest. This family was prevented from meeting their wider family, including Chen Guangcheng's and Yuan Weijing's son, who lived elsewhere with an aunt.

Last spring He Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy in Beijing, so that he could escape house arrest in Shandong, China. Were they traveling in a Corolla, the best-selling car of all time produced by the Japanese company Toyota?

After Peirong drove Guangcheng to the US embassy, the US and China worked out a deal and Guangcheng escaped to the United States. He Peirong didn't loose Guangcheng like Harriet Tubman didn't loose runaway slaves while helping them to escape slavery in American slave states to freedom in American non-slaves states and in Canada.

On April 9, 2013, Chen Guangcheng testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's and other people's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

God the Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) says in Matthew 7:12 Complete Jewish Bible, "“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets." A Twi African proverb says, "Love is the greatest of all virtues."

Abraham in the movie Selena came to love Chris as his son-in-law. Currently, Chinese authorities are not loving the Chen family and those who dare to defy China's one-child policy which includes forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

“They can’t do anything about Guangcheng, so they are taking revenge on me,” says Chen Guangfu, a brother of Chen Guangcheng, about an attack this morning where two unidentified men stopped him from riding his electric bicycle and beat him ("Exiled activist Chen Guangcheng's brother beaten in latest attack against family" South China Morning Post May 9, 2013, article by Verna Yu.)

The Chen family has been persecuted for a number of years.

Guangfu's son and Guangcheng's nephew, Chen Kegui, is currently in jail and is being denied medical treatment for appendicitis. Freedom Now, a human rights group, has written an April 29, 2013, letter to the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on Torture seeking to get Kegui to a hospital and out of jail. 

“They can do nothing to control what I say to the international community, so they are threatening and oppressing (my relatives) in order to shut me up,” Guangcheng told Verna Yu by telephone. He also told her, “I will always speak the truth, I will never hold back.”

Abraham lost his daughter's life through a troubled employee. With timely action, Chen family members can be protected. Pastor Bob Fu, Founder and President of China Aid, spoke with Guangcheng today regarding today's attack on his brother, Chen Guangfu. Fu said in a May 9, 2013, China Aid "Chen Guangcheng's Elder Brother Chen Guangfu was Violently Beaten" article, "To employ mafia style actions in order to silent a fellow citizen's voice represents a new low for China's leaders. It is time for President Obama to immediately intervene with this worsening situation. The US leaders and international community should hold the Chinese top leaders accountable for their miserable failure to deliver its own solemn public international commitment that was made a year ago to both Mr. Chen and Mr. Obama, which was to protect the safety and civil rights of Mr. Chen's family members and investigate years' of abuses and torture to Mr. Chen, his wife and other family members."

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