The brother of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has fled his closely guarded village to seek legal advice Thursday in Beijing on how to protect his son from what their supporters call retaliation by local officials, an attorney said. 
 
 Chen sought protection of U.S. diplomats last month after escaping virtual house arrest in his hometown, sparking a standoff between Beijing and Washington and highlighting the extralegal measures taken by local Chinese officials to suppress dissent. 
 
 The two countries resolved the standoff by agreeing to let Chen and his immediate family travel to the U.S. so that he could attend a university, but his supporters say the legal activist's extended family in Shandong province faces a continued crackdown. 
 
 His nephew, Chen Kegui, has been arrested and accused of attempted murder during a clash last month with local officials who burst into his home looking for Chen after his escape. 
 
 Chen Guangfu _ the activist's brother and the father of Chen Kegui _ met Thursday in Beijing with attorney Ding Xikui to discuss his son's case, the lawyer said. 
 
 Ding says he and another attorney were authorized by Chen Kegui's wife to defend him. However, police at the Yinan detention center where Chen Kegui is being have told the lawyers that government-appointed attorneys will be representing him instead. 
 
 Ding said Chen Guangfu wanted to meet with him to affirm that he, too, wanted Ding to represent his son, not the government-appointed lawyers. 
 
 "We are still in negotiations with the local authorities" on Chen Kegui's case, Ding said, adding that Chen Guangfu also wanted to meet his daughter-in-law who is staying in Beijing. 
 
 Two other rights lawyers said that Chen Guangfu called them once he left the village. One of them, Jiang Tianyong, said Chen Guangfu described the security situation in his hometown as having become tighter since Chen Guangcheng escaped the village a month ago. 
 
 "There are more people, many more people. They are stationed at the entrance of the village and at major intersections, they are spread even farther and wider," Jiang said. 
 
 Chen Guangcheng is a self-taught legal activist who gained recognition for crusading for the disabled and fighting against forced abortions in his rural community. But he angered local officials and was convicted in 2006 on what his supporters say were fabricated charges. After serving four years in prison, he then faced an abusive and illegal house arrest. 
 
 Chen made a daring escape from his village in April and wound up in the protection of U.S. diplomats, triggering a diplomatic standoff over his fate. Officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to see him have second thoughts. That forced new negotiations that led to an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law, a goal of his, at New York University. 
 
 The departure of Chen, his wife and two children to the United States on Saturday marked the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the activist. ||||| 1 of 5. Chen Guangfu, the eldest brother of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, recounts in Beijing May 23, 2012 the details of his torture and the authorities' reprisals against his family after Chen Guangcheng's flight last week to the United States. 
 
 BEIJING | 
 
 BEIJING (Reuters) - The brother of blind activist Chen Guangcheng has fled his village in north-eastern China, evading a security clampdown to seek help from lawyers for his son who has been detained in a case that has become a rallying point among rights activists. 
 
 Chen Guangfu, the eldest brother of Chen Guangcheng, told Reuters that he walked out of his home in Shandong province at 3 a.m. (1900 GMT) on Tuesday, eluding the increased number of sentries near his village by avoiding roads and running through fields. He arrived in Beijing on Wednesday evening after a six-hour journey by car. 
 
 His activist brother escaped Dongshigu village in late April after 19 months of detention at home, following a similar route to the capital before taking refuge in the U.S. embassy, where he stayed for six days and sparked a diplomatic crisis between China and the United States. 
 
 That crisis, which overshadowed a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was finally defused on Saturday when China allowed Chen to fly to the United States to study. But while Chen Guangcheng spent his first few days in New York after years of jail and detention, most of his family back home in Shandong has remained under a security clampdown. 
 
 The 55-year-old Chen Guangfu, in a rare interview since his brother escaped in April, recounted details of his own torture and reprisals by authorities since his brother's escape. 
 
 He said he was restricted from leaving the village and that police in Shandong warned him they would increase the sentence for his son, Chen Kegui, who is being held on an attempted murder charge, if he gave interviews. 
 
 "I feel since they are already doing this, why can't I say something?" Chen Guangfu said late on Wednesday in a teahouse in western Beijing. "I have the power to speak up." 
 
 "I told them their claims have no legal basis, but are based on power or by their will to determine Kegui's sentence. On this point, I'll never be able to accept it," he said, adding he planned to return to his village soon. 
 
 Local government and public security bureau officials were not immediately available for comment. 
 
 Chen Kegui, 32, was charged with "intentional homicide" for using knives to fend off local officials who burst into his home on April 27, the day after they discovered his blind uncle had escaped. He could face the death penalty. His lawyers, denied access to him on Friday, said he did not kill anyone. 
 
 Chen Guangfu's wife, Ren Zongju, also may be indicted for "harbouring" her son, a charge punishable by up to 10 years jail, lawyers said. She was detained on April 29 and freed on bail. His daughter-in-law, Liu Fang, has been in Beijing for the past three weeks seeking lawyers for her husband. 
 
 Reprisals began soon after Chen's escape was discovered. Just after midnight on April 27, men in plainclothes scaled the walls of Chen Guangfu's home and kicked open its doors. They put a hood over him and took him to a police building. There, he said, they handcuffed him, bound his feet in iron chains, slapped him and stomped on his feet. 
 
 His captors lifted his handcuffed hands from the back so he couldn't sit straight and used his belt to whip his hands. The beatings lasted "a long time" and his left thumb lost feeling, he said. 
 
 "How did Guangcheng escape?" police asked him repeatedly. 
 
 The Foreign Ministry has said that Chen Guangcheng was a "free citizen" after his release from jail in 2010. But the walls and guards that penned him in his home and kept supporters and reporters out reflect the pervasive informal controls used to throttle dissent in China. 
 
 His elder brother's account illustrates the pressure authorities put on family members of dissidents and the hard line taken against Chen Guangcheng's family. Their treatment has encouraged lawyers and advocates to challenge what they see as the ruling Communist Party's stifling of lawful dissent. 
 
 A farmer and an odd-job labourer, Chen Guangfu said he told the police the full account of his brother's escape after they mentioned the names of activists and villagers involved. He also told police he had an obligation to help his younger brother, and stressed that he had already completed his sentence and become a "free citizen". 
 
 "I don't think he's a criminal. I don't think I'm in the wrong for helping a free citizen," he told police. 
 
 "UNFAIR, ILLEGAL" 
 
 After police took Chen Guangfu into custody, a second group of men went to his home and beat his wife and son, Chen Guangfu said. His wife later told him uniformed police charged in with shields and rubber truncheons and resumed beating her and Chen Kegui, who was by then bleeding and crying out for help. It was around this time Chen Kegui took a kitchen knife and slashed three officials. 
 
 Chen Kegui is being held in a detention centre in Yinan and authorities have barred family and the lawyers they chose from visiting or representing him, his father said. 
 
 Police told Chen Kegui's lawyers that he had been appointed two lawyers from the state-run Yinan legal aid centre. Officials at the centre said they have no knowledge of the case. 
 
 "I think this is unfair and illegal," said Chen Guangfu, a dark and lanky former high school teacher. "Based on my understanding of Chen Kegui, he will never refuse the intervention of outside counsel. From Guangcheng's case, he understands thoroughly that these so-called 'legal aid lawyers' are useless." 
 
 Chen Guangfu said he was "extremely pessimistic" about his son's prospects. 
 
 Chen Kegui's wife Liu, also present, told Reuters that she hoped her husband's case would be treated like "a normal, criminal case". Her 5-year-old son, Chen Fubin, is back in Shandong. 
 
 "He (Chen Kegui) must be heavily injured, I'm worried about his physical state," she said, her voice breaking. "Inside, he might be subject to beatings." 
 
 The two lawyers she chose to represent Chen Kegui challenged the Yinan County Public Security Bureau for "illegal" efforts to deny them access to their client, in a letter to the Yinan police chief published on a microblog on Monday. 
 
 Before he left for the United States on Saturday, Chen Guangcheng predicted the authorities' drive to manipulate his nephew's case would fail and increase public discontent over an episode that has renewed international focus on China's human rights and legal system. 
 
 Chen Guangfu also provided new detail on his brother's escape. The blind Chen Guangcheng left on the morning of April 20, scaled eight walls, some as high as four metres, and slept in a pig sty, he said. 
 
 "I tried too to follow his escape route, there were two walls I didn't dare to scale," Chen Guangfu said. 
 
 The elder Chen said he helped by contacting activists He Peirong and Guo Yushan after learning his brother had left his village. The two activists drove down from Beijing and arrived at Tai'an city in Shandong to pick Chen Guangcheng up. 
 
 Asked for his thoughts about his brother in the United States, Chen Guangfu said: "I think if he has a chance, he should take us there to have a look. 
 
 "So many people have said bad things about the United States. Someone even said he was like a dog that was kicked out of the U.S. embassy," he said. "But ultimately, he ended up in America. So I think the criticisms aren't justified." 
 
 (Editing by Brian Rhoads and Jonathan Thatcher)
– The brother of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has followed in his younger brother's footsteps and fled their closely guarded village in Shandong province, reports AP. Chen Guangfu has made his way to Beijing with the help of supporters, and is now seeking legal advice on how to protect his son from what he believes is retaliation from local officials infuriated by the activist's escape from house arrest last month. He says he managed to elude village guards by avoiding roads and running through fields. Chen Guangfu's son was arrested and accused of attempted murder after using a knife to fend off officials who had entered his home and were beating his mother after his uncle's escape. His father says he is "extremely pessimistic" about his son's prospects. Asked for his thoughts about his brother's new life in the US, the elder Chen said he should bring his family over to take a look. "So many people have said bad things about the United States. Someone even said he was like a dog that was kicked out of the US embassy," he tells Reuters. "But ultimately, he ended up in America. So I think the criticisms aren't justified."