By Dave Andrusko

Deng Jiyuan, the husband of Feng Jianmei who was forced to abort her seven month old unborn baby, told reporters over the weekend of his harrowing escape from local Chinese officials. In particular Deng provided the British newspaper The Telegraph with details about how he had fled from hometown in Shaanxi province and traveling nearly a thousand miles to Beijing to seek justice. However he was unable to rescue his wife who remains in the Shaanxi Zhenping County hospital.

Feng and Deng, the peasant parents of a five-year-old daughter, were unable to pay the $6,300 fine for having a second child. At the end of May, the 23-year-old Mrs.Feng was dragged into a vehicle, her head covered and her legs beaten, and then taken to a hospital where she was given chemicals that killed her baby and induced labor.

Photos of Mrs. Feng lying next to the body of her aborted baby, posted by her husband on the Chinese version of Twitter, created a tremendous international furor. Although two local government officials were supposedly fired, Mr. Deng told the Telegraph that the family was prevented from leaving a hospital in Ankang, Shaanxi.

“Mr. Deng said he was beaten and labelled a traitor for speaking out about the crime,” Malcolm Moore reported. “He made three attempts to escape, only succeeding at the third try. He also tried, but failed, to spirit his wife out of confinement at the hospital.”

Mr. Deng told Moore that

“The government did not talk to me much after what happened. They just said: ‘What is done is done. This situation has already happened.’ After I escaped, I heard the news that they had hung banners calling me a traitor. They apparently did that to threaten me.”

The Associated Press reported that

“Apparently angered over the family’s contacts with journalists, the local government has since organized a backlash against the family members, calling them traitors and keeping them under surveillance, Deng Jicai, a sister of the 30-year-old father Deng Jiyuan, said. ‘”We are already heartbroken from losing the baby. How did we become traitors?” Deng Jicai said.

According to Deng Jicai, Deng’s sister, while Mrs. Feng remains in the hospital, government officials have now left them alone. “We are worried, however, that Feng’s situation is worsening again. She has low blood pressure, frequent headaches and stomach aches,” Deng Jicai said.

The Telegraph reports that Deng Jicai charged that villagers help kidnap Mrs. Feng and abort her baby.

Mr. Deng has hired a lawyer, Zhang Kai, to sue the local government.