A daring escape to the US
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.
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.
After weeks on the run, Chen was exhausted, and so was her luck. A Christian, she prayed: "Don't desert us now, not like this." Help arrived, from America. U.S. Embassy officials reached the jail and whisked Chen and her daughters away.
The Chinese agents outside soon realized what had happened and pursued them, finally meeting in a standoff at the Bangkok airport where Chinese, Thai and U.S. officials heatedly argued over custody of the family.
Chen and her supporters disclosed details of her family's March escape for the first time to The Associated Press.
Their ordeal began July 9, 2015, when China launched a crackdown on human rights lawyers. Chen's husband, who has represented evicted farmers and pro-democracy activists, was among dozens detained and later charged with crimes against the state.
In January this year, Chen helped release her husband's account of being beaten, deprived of sleep and otherwise tortured.
Police summoned Chen for hours-long meetings where, she said, they threatened to evict her, deny her children schooling and have her fired from her job as a university professor.
Chen contacted Bob Fu, a Christian rights activist based in Texas who has helped several high-profile dissidents flee China.
On the morning of Feb. 19, she told her daughters, "We're going on a trip."
They headed south from their home in central China, then crossed into at least two countries without paperwork. There were nights, she said, when they had nowhere to sleep and days when they had nothing but a bag of chocolates to eat.
After five days of travel, they arrived at a safe house in Bangkok. On March 2, Thai police barged into the safe house and sent the family to detention. The next morning, an immigration judge ordered Chen to be deported.
In Texas, Fu alerted the State Department and his associates in Thailand, who quickly located her.
Chen and Fu declined to explain what happened after the airport standoff, citing diplomatic sensitivities, other than that the family made it to the U.S. on March 17.
China's foreign affairs and public security ministries did not respond to faxed requests for comment. Thai and U.S. authorities declined to comment.
Xie's trial, held Monday, was completed by midday without any witnesses called. Xie pleaded guilty and asked for leniency.