Beijing: Chinese dissident Fu Xiancai, who was paralyzed in an attack earlier this year, arrived at a specialist clinic for rehabilitation in Beijing on Saturday, after a 19-hour medical transport from Yichang in the province of Hubei. Fu Xiancai had reached the hospital in a reasonably good condition and would begin treatment his treatment on Monday, sources said. He would stay at the centre, one of the best rehabilitation clinics in China, for at least three months, for treatments funded by German donations.

The 47-year-old had been beaten up and paralyzed by unknown assailants after providing an interview to German public broadcaster ARD in June in which he criticized insufficient compensations for residents displaced by the building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Well-known for his critical stance towards the government, the activist had received threats of violence even before the incident following his interview in which his spine was broken. Chinese officials originally claimed after the incident that Fu had merely fallen.