http://news.yahoo.com/blind-chinese-activist-arrives-york-001051891.html

Almost a month since his dramatic escape from house arrest ‹ and subsequent refuge inside the U.S. Embassy‹ sparked a diplomatic tussle between Washington and Beijing, Chen arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport Saturday evening with his wife and two children. He had been hurriedly taken from a Beijing hospital earlier in the day and put on a plane after authorities told him to prepare to leave.

Dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants and using crutches, his right leg in a cast, Chen was greeted with cheers when he arrived at the apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village where he will live with his family. The complex houses faculty and graduate students of New York University, where Chen is expected to attend law school.

"For the past seven years, I have never had a day's rest," he said through a translator. "So I have come here for reparation in body and spirit."
Chen urged the crowd to fight for injustice, and thanked the U.S. and Chinese governments, and also the embassies of Switzerland, Canada and France.
"After much turbulence, I have come out of Shandong," he said, referring to the Chinese province where he was under house arrest. He spoke briefly and didn't take questions from reporters.

His arrival in the USA starts a new phase in an already remarkable life, and closes another troubled chapter in the often volatile U.S.-China relationship.

The family's departure cheered supporters and friends in Beijing who have been anxious about their safety, but it also left mixed feelings that China today remains too repressive for people like Chen to live and work freely.

Until his escape April 22, Chen suffered almost 19 months of illegal house arrest in his home village in east China's Shandong province. That often-abusive detention followed a four-year jail term that his lawyers say authorities trumped up to stop him pursuing cases such as the thousands of local women forced to have abortions and sterilizations to meet China's one child policy.