UPDATE: Blind Chinese Human Rights Activist Chen Guangcheng On Prison Hunger Strike After Being Beaten

Beijing, China (AHN) - A leading Chinese human rights activist was ordered beaten by other prisoners in his Chinese prison after he refused to allow guards to shave his head until he has a chance to complete the appeal of his sentence. Guards ordered other prisoners to beat Chen Guangcheng, who is blind. He was jailed in 2006 on charges of destroying property and disrupting traffic.
Chen said he was beaten for being disobedient for refusing to give up on appealing his sentence. He told his wife that guards ordered six prisoners to beat him, then denied him medical care for his injuries. He has started a hunger strike to protest, BBC news reported Friday.
His wife visited him shortly after the beating and told his lawyer Li Jinsong what she found.
"She saw that his mood was unhappy, that his knees and ribs were red, injured and swollen," Li told the Washington Post in a telephone interview Friday. "She was afraid one of the ribs might be broken. He began rejecting food and water after the beating," the Washington Post reported Friday.
Chen, 35, lost an appeal in January and his current appeal has been delayed because his blindness requires him to have assistance to write it, but jail officials limit visits by his wife and attorneys to 30 minutes a month.
His lawyers and the human rights group Amnesty International have said that the case against Chen was politically motivated and that it resulted from his exposure of China's enforcement of its one-child policy.
Amnesty International has said that with the approaching World Olympics focusing attention there on China's broken promises to improve its human rights record that the government needs to stop persecuting it's citizens who stand up for human rights.
Chen landed in trouble with Chinese law after "helping villagers sue local authorities for carrying out forced abortions and sterilizations," according to a statement on Amnesty International's Web site.
In the past Amnesty International has objected to Chen's "frequent beatings by the local authorities" and has called for his immediate release. The group has also declared Chen a "prisoner of conscience -- someone imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs."