Blind Chinese activist badly beaten, wife says

BEIJING – The wife of a blind Chinese activist under house arrest says local authorities beat her husband into unconsciousness and denied him medical care.

Yuan Weijing wrote in a handwritten letter that was smuggled out of the couple's tightly guarded home in central China's Shandong province that she and her husband, Chen Guangcheng, were both badly beaten Feb. 18.

Yuan wrote that Chen passed out from the beating and that she may have suffered a broken rib and brow bone. The letter was posted Thursday on the website of the U.S.-based rights group China Aid.

Calls to the Shuanghou government and Communist Party office rang unanswered Friday.