Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng made his way to the U.S. embassy in Beijing from his home in Linyi village in Shandong province after his escape from house arrest on Sunday, fellow dissident Hu Jia told BBC News.
Hu said Chen, a blind attorney known as the Barefoot Lawyer, first scaled a high wall and then was driven hundreds of kilometers to Beijing, BBC News reported.
There are reports that his brother Chen Guangfu and nephew Chen Kegui are now being held by police, BBC News said.
Victoria Nuland, a representative of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, neither confirmed nor denied that Chen Guangcheng was at the U.S. embassy in Beijing during the State Department's daily press briefing on Friday, saying, "I don't have anything for you on that subject."
Guangchen had been under house arrest for 19 months, Reuters reported, citing as its source ChinaAid, a Texas-based, international non-profit human rights organization.
The Chinese government has made no comment on Chen's alleged escape and U.S. embassy protection.
The incident could cause tension between the Chinese and American governments, and it precedes by less than a week a high-profile, two-day visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to Beijing on Thursday, Reuters reported.
"Because of Chen's wide popularity, the Obama Administration must stand firmly with him or risk losing credibility as a defender of freedom and the rule of law," Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, a religious and political rights advocacy group that has long campaigned for Chen's freedom, said in an email.
According to Reuters, Chen is a self-schooled legal advocate who campaigned against forced abortions who has been held under extra-legal confinement in his village home in Linyi in eastern Shandong province since September 2010 when he was released from jail. His confinement under relentless surveillance with his family fanned protests by Chinese sympathizers and criticism from foreign governments and groups.
Reuters added that Chen's escape and the furor it has unleashed could add to the headaches of China's ruling Communist Party, which is striving to ensure stability and authority before a leadership transition later this year.
The incident and its surrounding controversy could overshadow Obama's Thursday visit to attend the Unites States' and China's annual "strategic and economic dialogue."
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