Blind activist at Beijing airport amid uncertainty

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Blind activist at Beijing airport amid uncertainty

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Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng said Saturday he was at Beijing's international airport .

19 May,2012 10:56 am

Chen said hebelieved he would be flying to New York.Im at the airport. I do not have a passport. I dont know when I will be leaving. I think Im going to New York, he told AFP by telephone.He said he thought Chinese authorities might hand the passport directly to US officials, who would then insert a US visa before giving it to him.An AFP photographer located outside the hospital where Chen had been for more than two weeks witnessed a motorcade leaving the hospital compound in the early afternoon. It was not clear whether Chen was in the motorcade.Chen, 40, had been at the Beijing hospital since he left the US embassy in the Chinese capital, where he had sought refuge for several days.The self-taught legal activist had made his way to the US mission after a dramatic escape from his home in east China, where he had been under house arrest.Chen, one of Chinas best-known dissidents, has won plaudits for exposing rights abuses including forced sterilisations and late-term abortions under Chinas one-child family planning policy.