Hollywood actor Christian Bale was manhandled and roughed up by Chinese security guards as he tried to visit a blind legal activist whose detention has sparked international outcry.
Bale, joined by a camera crew from CNN, was confronted by four men dressed in plain clothes as he tried to visit Chen Guangcheng who has been under house arrest in the Dongshigu village for 15 months.
The Oscar-winning actor, who plays superhero Batman, can be seen being pushed and shoved by the guards before being frogmarched away in the video released by CNN.
'Why can I not visit this free man?' Bale can be heard repeatedly asking the security officers, while they were pushing him.
In response the guards are reported to have shouted 'Go away!' while physically shoving Bale and the crew on Thursday.
According to the report, Bale was also punched by the guards who were aiming for his small camera in an attempt to stop him recording.
'The local people who are standing up to the authorities and insisting on going to visit Chen and his family and getting beaten up for it, and my understanding, getting detained for it and everything. I want to support what they are doing.'
Chen, a blind, self-schooled lawyer, angered authorities in 2005 by exposing forced abortions as part of China's one-child policy.
He was formally released in September 2010 after four years in jail on a charge of 'blocking traffic' and damaging property in a protest.
Bale had first learned about Chen through news reports, when he was in China filming a wartime drama set in 1930s Nanjing in which he plays a mortician trying to save a group of schoolgirls from the clutches invading Japanese soldiers, reports CNN.
The film itself has already proved controversial as it was partly funded by state-owned Bank of China. Many believe it to be an attempt by the Chinese government to exert “soft power” and make cultural inroads in the West.
The film is based on the novel The 13 Women of Nanjing by Geling Yan and has been selected as China’s entry for the best foreign language film at next year’s Oscars.
The activist's story struck a chord with the actor so much so that that he decided to do something to raise international awareness of Chen.
source: daily mail
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