LINYI, China — The central government says that the activist Chen Guangcheng is a free man, and has promised him an investigation of the harrowing abuses he suffered at the hands of guards here. Mr. Chen’s desperate escape last month from persecution to American protection has embarrassed China’s leaders and cast new shadows on their commitment to the rule of law.

But a visit to this municipality in eastern China, where Mr. Chen and his family most recently spent 20 months as prisoners in their own home, offers no hint of a change in the way China deals with its dissidents.

Journalists who sought on Sunday to talk to residents a few hundred yards from Dongshigu, the village in Linyi where Mr. Chen was held captive, were quickly escorted out by thugs in four cars, and later were accosted in a burst of arm-wrenching and name-calling.

Members of the same gang still keep Mr. Chen’s mother under siege here. Mr. Chen’s nephew faces a charge of attempted murder after he slashed a knife at plainclothes officers who invaded his home and beat him. Lawyers seeking to defend the nephew have been ordered to drop the case or face retribution.