Magsaysay Awardees Digital Collection

Chen Guangcheng

Description

2007 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Emergent Leadership from China. Chen Guangcheng learned firsthand how to transcend life’s limitations. Blinded as an infant, he was denied schooling for most of his youth. He soaked in knowledge by listening to the radio and by age thirty had completed a university course in massage and acupuncture therapy. Diligently studying law books read to him by others, he became a “barefoot lawyer” and helped his neighbors to register complaints and file civil cases in local courts. He defended the rights of the disabled, secured funds to provide safe water for villages near river-polluting factories, and filed a first-ever class-action lawsuit against local officials for abusive violations of China’s population control policies. Chen’s activism angered local officials. He was harassed and beaten and then convicted and jailed on dubious charges. He remains in jail today.


View the items in Chen Guangcheng

It was this eight-page cover story of Newsweek on March 4, 2002 when Chen Guangcheng first surfaced out of China, according to an article by Jerome Alan Cohen entitled "China Trips Up Its Barefoot Lawyers" published in the Far Eastern Economic Review…

China's One-Child and Abortion Policy
The China's One Child and Abortion Policy has long been considered a pillar of the nation's economic development strategy, according to an article by Philip Pan entitled "Who Controls the Family?: Blind Activist Leads Peasants in Legal Challenge to…

Chen as a Barefoot Lawyer
Since 1996, with help from family and friends, Cheng Guangcheng has been providing legal consulting services for the handicapped and farmers free of charge. Barefoot lawyer has become increasingly popular, almost a "profession," among China's…

Chen on Environmental Conservation and Treatment of Animals
In 1998, Chen led farmers from his hometown in Yinan County and 78 surrounding villages of Linyi City, in Shandong Province in protest against a river-polluting paper factory and persuaded an international donor to fund a deep well as an…

Chen on Population Control Abuses
Linyi, a city of 10 million which includes 3 districts and 9 counties, initiated a widespread campaign of population control in 2004. It was reported by residents, according to Chen's biography, that the government practices were involved with…

Chen Guangcheng Honored
Prior to receiving the Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2007, Chen Guangcheng was cited for various honors. In the same year on March 14, he was honored with the "Freedom of Expression Award" by the Index on Censorship. Freedom of…

Chen Guangcheng's wife Yuan Weijing writes to remind the world of her husband's life in prison.

Chen has fought for the the rights of blind people in rural communities and has worked tirelessly to secure basic human rights for ordinary people.…

Citation of Chen Guangcheng as Magsaysay Awardee for Emergent Leadership

In electing Chen Guangcheng to receive the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the…