From China to Thailand to the US: harrowing escape for family of Chinese rights lawyer

BEIJING // Stuck in a Bangkok jail with a deportation order against her, Chen Guiqiu waited with dread over what seemed certain to come next.

A Thai immigration official showed her surveillance video of the jail entrance, where more than a dozen Chinese security agents were waiting.

Within minutes, Ms Chen feared, she and her two daughters would be escorted back to China, where her husband, prominent rights lawyer Xie Yang, was held on a charge of inciting subversion – and where punishment for attempting to flee surely awaited her.

After weeks on the run, Ms Chen was exhausted. A Christian, she prayed: “Don’t desert us now, not like this.”

Help arrived from America.

US embassy officials reached the jail and whisked Ms Chen and her daughters away. The Chinese agents outside soon realised what had happened and pursued them, finally meeting in a standoff at the Bangkok airport where Chinese, Thai and US officials heatedly argued over custody of the family.

The family finally made it to the US on March 17.

Their ordeal began on July 9, 2015, when the Chinese government launched a nationwide crackdown on human rights lawyers. Ms Chen’s husband, Xie, was among dozens detained and later charged with crimes against the state.

After releasing her husband’s account of being beaten, deprived of sleep and tortured in January, police summoned Ms Chen for hours-long meetings where they threatened to evict her, deny her children schooling and have her fired from her job as a university professor.

Ms Chen contacted Bob Fu, a Christian rights activist based in Texas who has helped several high-profile dissidents flee China.

With her two daughters, she headed south from their home in central China on February 19, then crossed into at least two countries without paperwork. After five days of travel, they arrived at a safe house in Bangkok. Somehow, Chinese authorities still learned that she might be in Thailand. On March 2, Thai police barged into the safe house and sent the family to detention. The next morning, an immigration judge ordered Ms Chen deported.

In Texas, Mr Fu alerted the state department and his associates in Thailand, who quickly located her on March 3 and even convinced Thai officials to let them whisk her out the back.

Ms Chen was stopped at the airport by Thai immigration officials. A confrontation between the Chinese, American and Thai officials nearly boiled over into a physical clash, said one person with knowledge of the operation. Ms Chen and Mr Fu declined to explain what happened next, citing diplomatic sensitivities.

Now safe in Texas, Ms Chen said she wanted to thank the state department and the Trump administration. But her sense of relief has been tempered by pain.

On Monday, her husband pleaded guilty to charges of incitement to subversion and disturbing legal proceedings and asked the court to grant him a lenient sentence based on his repentance.

“Everyone should take me as a lesson: You must behave within the boundaries of the law, avoid being used by anti-China western forces,” Xie said in a prepared statement read to the court.

His wife called the trial a sham.

“Your play was performed beautifully,” said Ms Chen. “All the people who participated in Xie Yang’s trial: history will remember all of you!”

* Associated Press