A blind, barefoot lawyer who battled to expose coercive Chinese birth control policies such as forced abortions and sterilisations is to go on trial this week.

Chen Guangcheng, 34, was formally arrested last month, but he has been effectively in custody since last August when thugs in his village in eastern Shandong province confined him to his home and beat up visitors who tried to reach him. He will go on trial on Thursday, his lawyer said.

Mr Chen lost his freedom when he was bundled into a car and taken back to his village last year after making his way to Beijing to publicise a brutal crackdown on couples who ignored China’s strict "one couple, one child" family planning policy. Mr Chen, who lost his sight as an infant but managed to study law on his own, became a local hero after he wrote a report on local population policies and offered to help villages file lawsuits in the town of Linyi.

He has been charged with destruction of property and of gathering people to disrupt traffic order. Both charges carry a maximum of three years in prison and Mr Chen could face as long as six years in jail.

Li Jinsong, his lawyer, said he was less than optimistic about the prospects of his client being found innocent. He told The Times: "I can’t collect evidence because the village has been closed off by gangsters. I don’t know who they are but they grabbed my camera right in front of the local police."

Six lawyers who travelled to Linyi last month were beaten up by thugs while the police refused to intervene. The case is an example not only of abuses of state family planning policies but of the lawlessness of rural areas where thugs hired by or acting on behalf of officials, police or influential and wealthy businessmen can take control with impunity.

The case also highlights the gap between the writ of the central government and the power of regional officials. A report by the National Family Planning and Population Commission, acting after Chen’s activism on behalf of villagers, sparked nationwide concern and saw some officials punished or fired for absues.

Mr Chen’s role in the incident clearly enraged local officials. Officials are required to meet tough quotas to ensure the one-child policy is carried out and these quotas were missed in Linyi. To hold down the numbers of new babies, officials there even held family members hostage to force pregnant women who had taken refuge in other regions to return and undergo abortions, even at eight months.

China faces a family planning dilemma. In rural areas, farmers are often allowed to have a second child if the first is a girl. In towns, parents who are both from one-child families are allowed to have two children. But with a traditional bias in favour of boys, many parents abort girls - even though gender scanning is illegal - and this has resulted in a huge gender impalance of 119 boys born for every 100 girls.

Mr Li, the lawyer, said:"This case is unusual. It has attracted widespread concern. It is also unusual that Mr Chen was detained illegally for so long."

Mr Chen was in good spirits last week as he prepared for his trial even though, as is highly likely in such a case in China, the court may find him guilty.

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