Beijing (CNN) -- A prominent Chinese human rights activist has called for an investigation into what he describes as corrupt and cruel officials who he says "violently assaulted" him and his family before he escaped from house arrest and fled to Beijing.
Chen Guangcheng addressed the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, in a video posted on YouTube on Friday, detailing the abuses he said he and his family had suffered at the hands of authorities during more than 18 months of heavily guarded detention in their home. "They broke into my house and more than a dozen men assaulted my wife," he said. "They pinned her down and wrapped her in a comforter, beating and kicking her for hours. They also similarly violently assaulted me." Chinese authorities have not commented.
The activist, who is blind, was driven to Beijing on Sunday after evading his guards in the tiny village of Dongshigu in Shandong Province, He Peirong, a friend and fellow activist, said Friday. Escape was like a Hollywood thriller His high-profile breakout appears to have angered the local authorities who were holding him captive, with members of his family already reporting that they have suffered reprisals.
Chen, 40, is a self-taught lawyer who rose to fame in the late 1990s thanks to his legal advocacy for what he called victims of abusive practices, such as alleged forced abortions, by China's family-planning officials.
A local court sentenced Chen to four years and three months in prison for damaging property, disrupting traffic and "pressurizing the government" in a protest, according to a story from the state-run Xinhua news agency. The same 2007 story, which reported that a higher court had denied his appeal, described Chen as a "blind mob organizer."
His supporters have maintained authorities used trumped-up charges to silence him. Since his September 2010 release from prison, he had been confined to his home along with his wife, mother and daughter. In the video posted Friday, he said the treatment of him and his family by the local security forces "was so cruel it has greatly harmed the image of the Communist Party."
Calling on Wen to investigate his case, he asked: "Is it just local officials flagrantly violating the law or do they have the support of the central government? I hope you will give the public a clear answer in the near future."
The blind activist had prepared for his escape for months, He Peirong said, by lying in bed for prolonged periods so that the guards wouldn't be suspicious if they didn't see any activity from him for a long time. Once free, Chen contacted He Peirong and a few other activists. "We learned that he had escaped and needed our help," she said, in an interview via Skype from her home city of Nanjing. They met him at a rendezvous point, and then drove him to Beijing and hid him in a safe house, He Peirong said.
She said that Chen's fellow activists had decided to publicize his flight from captivity after hearing that Shandong authorities, upon discovering his disappearance, had sent people to assault members of his family.
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