I couldn’t have made up a better title. Chen Guangcheng, who has been blind since a young child, has somehow escaped house arrest in China. He has been in prison or under house arrest since 2006 for his work as a defender of civil rights (or, as officially reported by Chinese officials, for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic”).

Chen defended women forced to have abortions or sterilizations.

There’s no faster way to end up in jail in China than to be a a civil rights lawyer. And the half-life of a Chinese civil rights lawyer is considerably shorter since Hu Jintao became President. The dramatic expansion of civil rights, such as they were, under Zhiang Zemin, the former President, has dramatically contracted under Hu.