DONGSHIGU, China — When he was asked whether it was possible to drive down the country lane to the village of Dongshigu, the man in black wanted to know, "What are you up to?"

Told that a passenger in the back seat worked for a newspaper, the plainclothes guard gave a guttural yell. Then he lunged through the car's half-open window and tried to drag away the journalist's Chinese translator.

As the journalist and his colleague sped off, the man sprinted to a nearby silver Volkswagen whose license plates were covered. The Volkswagen gave chase last Thursday at speeds that reached 105 mph in the middle of the afternoon. It pulled back only after blinking its headlights, possibly to signal a roadside police checkpoint that the journalist's vehicle was on the way.

The aggressive security cordon is maintained for just one reason: to keep a blind man from speaking to the world.

Since he left prison last September, Chen Guangcheng, a largely self-taught legal crusader, has been held under extrajudicial house arrest that's said to include floodlights installed around his home and escorts for his 6-year-old daughter to and from school. Until the Communist Party of China decides otherwise, the 39-year-old Chen, instantly recognizable by his dark glasses and mustache, will remain tucked away in a lawless limbo.

Chen's offense against the state was trying to organize a class-action lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of victims of forced abortions and sterilizations in this nook of eastern Shandong province. During a brutal attempt by local officials to satisfy national "one-child" population control, some women reportedly were dragged off into the night to be "fixed." Others came for the procedures after their family members were assaulted.

A government commission subsequently confirmed Chen's claims that "illegal family planning practices" had taken place. Still, Chen, a soft-spoken man who's been blind since childhood, was sentenced to 51 months in August 2006 on charges of damaging property and gathering people to block traffic.

The ordeal is a stark example of the lengths that Chinese officials will go to stamp out potential challenges to their authoritarian power. The party's propaganda rests on the notion that its rule is crucial to the advancement of the masses. But those who demand widespread civil rights for the people do so at the risk of harassment and detention.

With his prison sentence completed, Chen found himself a captive in Dongshigu. Recent attempts to visit Chen by Chinese activists and ordinary citizens have ended in violent confrontations or wild sprints through the countryside to avoid roving gangs of thugs, not unlike McClatchy's own experience last week.

Wang Xuezhen, a 30-year-old purchasing agent for a furniture business and online activist, recounted her own recent try to enter Dongshigu.

"A bag was put on my head, I was down on the ground and those people kicked me over and over," she said.

As with other incidents at the village, it couldn't be determined whether the men involved had connections to security bureaus or were just hired muscle.

Wang returned to the area last week to file a complaint and try to recover her belongings from the police in Linyi, a city with administrative oversight of Dongshigu.

As Wang spoke during an interview at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a man with a thick build and a closely cropped haircut sat at the next table and listened intently. Wang, a small woman who keeps her long black hair tucked behind the ears, gestured at the man and said he probably was following her.