{"id":24172,"date":"2011-12-16T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T12:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=24172 "},"modified":"2011-12-16T12:06:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T12:06:00","slug":"24172-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=24172","title":{"rendered":"Star of \u201cBatman\u201d Films Christian Bale Assaulted and Chased Away Trying to Visit Dissident in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">DONGSHIGU VILLAGE, China (CNN) &#8212; As Christian Bale approached an impromptu checkpoint leading to this tiny village in eastern China, four men blocking the narrow path started marching toward him in menacing unison.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;I am here to see Chen Guangcheng,&#8221; the &#8220;Dark Knight&#8221; actor said and I translated, with correspondent Stan Grant and cameraman Brad Olson next to us.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;Go away!&#8221; the plainclothes guards barked, pushing us back.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Amid the scuffling and yelling, dozens more guards in olive-green, military-style overcoats &#8212; and two gray minivans &#8212; emerged from the other side of the checkpoint, all coming toward us.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;Why can I not visit this free man?&#8221; Bale asked repeatedly, only to receive punches from guards aiming for his small camera as they tried to drag him away from the rest of us.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">As we retreated, I recognized the ringleader &#8212; the same burly man who had hurled rocks at the CNN team 10 months earlier to force us out of the same location.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">A precarious scene ensued Thursday as one of the gray minivans chased our car at high speed on bumpy country roads for some 40 minutes.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">When the dust settled, we counted a broken car, a damaged camera &#8212; and a Hollywood star disappointed at &#8212; but not shocked by &#8212; his failure to see a personal hero.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is,&#8221; Bale said.<\/span>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><a href=\"http:\/\/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/05\/journalists-should-be-government-mouthpieces-chinas-state-tv-president-says\/?ref=china#h[]\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; \"><\/a><\/span><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/us-ambassador-to-china-calls-on-beijing-to-improve-its-human-rights-record\/2011\/12\/10\/gIQAeRlEkO_story.html\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; \"><\/strong><\/a><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2011\/12\/15\/world\/asia\/china-bale-activist\/index.html?hpt=wo_c2\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #034af3; \"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">original article<\/span><\/a><\/strong><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;div&gt;Chen Guangcheng, a blind self-taught lawyer, is under house arrest along with his family. &amp;nbsp;Bale, who recently learned about Chen&amp;#8217;s plight while making a film in China dealing with the Nanjing Massacre, was attempting to visit Chen at his home.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;\/p&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}