Activist says China is slowly improving

Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng told a New York City audience Thursday that he thinks his country is moving toward becoming a more democratic society, but he said it will reach its potential only when his fellow citizens stop tolerating lawlessness among their leaders.

Chen, 40, was imprisoned for seven years by provincial officials until a dramatic escape from house arrest in his rural village in April. His talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, an international affairs think tank, was his first extended public appearance since arriving in the U.S. on May 19, following delicate negotiations between the U.S. and China that secured his freedom.

The blind activist said that even after the central Chinese government promised to investigate the circumstances of his captivity and let him leave the country to study at New York University, a mob of “thugs” working for local officials severely beat relatives who stayed behind and jailed his nephew for attempting to defend himself.

“Is there any justice? Is there any rationale in any of this?” he asked through a translator.

Egypt’s 31-year emergency law ends

Egypt’s notorious emergency law expired Thursday, ending 31 years of broad powers to detain and arrest for a police force accused of severely abusing its far-reaching authority.

“This is huge,” said Hossam Bahgat, a human rights activist who campaigned to lift the law.

The military that took charge after Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year doesn’t plan to renew the law and said it will hand power to a democratically elected president by the end of June.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner welcomed the end of the emergency law, saying it was a step “in the right direction.”

Nepal Supreme Court judge killed

Motorcycle-riding assailants in Nepal shot and killed a Supreme Court judge under investigation for allegedly taking bribes as he headed to work in Katmandu, police said. Rana Bahadur Bam’s bodyguard and another passenger were wounded, police official Rabindra Shah said. Bam was being investigated for allegedly taking bribes from suspects charged with abduction in 2010 in exchange for releasing them with light sentences and fines.