[promoted by BooMan. A friend of a friend is in need. Please, help spread the word.]
I met Hao Wu a few years ago. At the time he was an aspiring screenwriter working for an internet company. From Sichuan via Beijing, Hao had been in the US for over a decade. I was really impressed by the quality of his prose – in English, his second language, mind you – his passion, heart and vision.
Hao followed his dream in spades. He decided to return to China, to Beijing, to see what had happened to the city he’d once known and experience China’s changes first-hand. He took a month long trip along the Silk Road and sent back regular dispatches. Then he produced his first film, Beijing Or Bust, a documentary about the lives of Chinese Americans trying to navigate contemporary Beijing. He then started a blog by the same title, in which he writes about his own navigations through today’s Beijing. There are some truly wonderful essays: evocative, original and informative, covering aspects of contemporary China that you will rarely find elsewhere.
One continuing thread was Hao’s search for a new documentary subject. He’d finally settled on “family churches,” not quite legal but not really underground religious congregations – go here for Hao’s vivid and scary post about his visit to one such church when the police show up.
The last email exchange I had with Hao was on Feb. 21st. I’d owed him an email. We chatted about various things, his new position as editor for Global Voices Online and the need for volunteers to post about what’s happening in the Chinese blogosphere.
Then, silence.
Hao Wu
,
freehaowu
Last week, I found out why:
Hao Wu (Chinese name: 吴皓), a Chinese documentary filmmaker who lived in the U.S. between 1992 and 2004, was detained by the Beijing division of China’s State Security Bureau on the afternoon of Wednesday, Febuary 22, 2006. On that afternoon, Hao had met in Beijing with a congregation of a Christian church not recognized by the Chinese government, as part of the filming of his next documentary.
Hao had also been in phone contact with Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer specializing in human rights cases. Gao confirmed to one of Hao’s friends that the two had been in phone contact and planned to meet on Feb. 22, but that their meeting never took place after Gao advised against it. On Friday, Feb. 24, Hao’s editing equipment and several videotapes were removed from the apartment where he had been staying. Hao has been in touch his family since Feb. 22, but judging from the tone of the conversations, he wasn’t able to speak freely. One of Hao’s friends has been interrogated twice since his detention. Beijing’s Public Security Bureau (the police) has confirmed that Hao has been detained, but have declined to specify the charges against him.
The reason for Hao’s detention is unknown. One of the possibilities is that the authorities who detained Hao want to use him and his video footage to prosecute members of China’s underground Churches. Hao is an extremely principled individual, who his friends and family believe will resist such a plan. Therefore, we are very concerned about his mental and physical well-being.
For more information on Hao, go here, where Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices are spearheading efforts to publicize his situation. I would urge any of you who blog and who care about free speech and who just want to help a really great person to consider putting up a post about Hao Wu and a blog badge to help get the word out.
If you have any doubts, go to Hao’s blog and read some of his writing. His is a unique voice, one that deserves to be heard, not silenced by fearful authoritarians.
Lisa,
The only thing I could think to do on this was to send the info off to Keith Olbermann’s show Countdown on MSNBC on the chance they’d cover it. (I’ve sent other things off to them in the past and while I have no idea if my tipping them off to these stories played any role in their airing them, several times they did cover stories I’d sent.)
Maybe others reading this here could also send it in to Olbermann’s show as well, increasing the odds the editors there might pick it up. The email address there is; countdown@msnbc.com
Here’s a copy of what I sent.
SB, thanks so much. Great idea – and you never know what might get picked up.
If by some chance Countdown contacts you, I would direct their attention to the freehaowu.org site – they are the people doing the heavy lifting on this and have the most and most updated information.
Will do.
I hope this works out well and Hao Wu is released without more difficulty.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of human existence that after who knows how many thousands of years human civilization has been evolving on Earth that we are, in the aggregate, still stuck in the morass of fear driven primitivism as revealed by this episode with Hao Wu and the other one with the Afghani guy threatened with execution because of religious belief.
One thing’s for sure. As a species we’re sure not as civilized as we like to think we are.
Amnesty International might be a place to contact.
http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/index/eng-000
I also passed this on to a contact at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. I have no clue what if anything they can do about it. But I thought, since this may have something to do with his contact with the churches, what the heck, I’d give it a try.
I just donated to them for the fist time in my life. And it does seem like the right organization for something of this nature. I was amazed at their work. They may be able to help spare this man or lessen his time as a prisoner.
Thanks to both of you.
Reporters without Borders is involved and I think the other relevant HR orgs have been contacted – the family is still a little reluctant to go into a full-on letter writing campaign. They’d hoped he was going to be released without difficulty. It’s only as this has dragged on that they’ve given permission to publicize his situation.
With all due respect to Booman, may I suggest that you cross post your diary on Dailykos. I’m sure that many of us from Booman would be happy to recommend it over there. Who knows if it hits the recommended list you could get some great exposure for your friend.
Good luck and let us know if you need help with the recommends.
Thanks. I’ll do that. I have never posted at Kos and figured it would just get lost. So please, yes, I’d love help with recommendations. Should I wait till tomorrow AM?
I’m no great authority on dKos diarying, but I’d wait until tomorrow.
During the day there’s almost always a bunch of people in the Froggy Bottom Cafe/Lounge, who are willing to jump over to dKos to rec a BT diarist.
So I’d definitely leave a link there, and on whatever is an open thread on the front page at the time you submit it, and also you could try putting a link in a comment within any other diary that may have some connection to the topic.
The Froggy Bottom Lounge is not always on the rec list however, see recent listings for the current one.
Great, ND, I will do that.
Idea. Not critical. Some diaries, like this, are good for information and for planning. But I’m learning a bit about the methods of activism. And if and when you write about this again, or other items — including your pitch for action is effective. Tell the people what you want them to do. Tell them your story. And ask them again. People — many people — especially here, are willing to help, as you know. You have to make it easy for them though, sometimes.
Good luck.
Boston Joe, good point. The only thing the Global Voices campaign is asking people to do, right now, is to help spread the word – blog and put up a blog badge. I hope I made that clear at the end, but definitely the next time I write about this I will emphasize it. And maybe I can add something up top to clarify that as well…
Writing all of this with some sort of cold/virus that won’t go away so I’m not thinking all that clearly either…
I contacted Nancy Pelosi about this case. Something people who are not her constituents might not know is that she has a long history of activity on behalf of persons whose rights have been violated in China.
Yes, she has many Chinese American constituents, but her commitment seems as genuine as anything a high level politician does. So she is a good one to pester on this.
Thanks, Jan. I do remember that about Pelosi, from the 92 convention. Great idea.
Here’s the link.
Thanks everyone, for your help and suggestions. Boston, I put the action above the fold and the story below. I think it works well that way.
And thanks again to Booman, for caring and front-paging this.
I went to Kos and recommended the diary. I urge all Booman people to do the same. Good luck.