RConversation

Free Hao Wu!

On March 22nd it will be one month since filmmaker and Global Voices Northeast Asia editor Hao Wu was detained without charge. We appeal to the Chinese government for Hao Wu's immediate release!

What happened to Hao?

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.

More about Hao: From Scientist to Computer Guy to Filmmaker.

Hao began his filmmaking career in 2004, when he gave up his job as a senior product manager at Atlanta-based Earthlink Inc. and returned to China to film Beijing or Bust, a collage of interviews with U.S.-born ethnic Chinese who now live in China's capital city. Before working for Earthlink, Hao worked as a product manager for Internet portal Excite from 2000 to 2001 in Redwood City, CA Before that, Hao had also worked as a strategic planning and product development director for Merchant Internet Group, an intern for American Express Co. and a molecular biologist with UCB Research Inc.

Hao earned an MBA degree from University of Michigan Business School in May 2000 and a Master of Science in molecular and cell biology in July, 1995 from Brandeis University, where he was awarded a full merit-based scholarship. Before studying in the U.S., Hao earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the China University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui province in June, 1992.

Hao the Blogger.

Hao has also been an active blogger, writing as "Beijing Loafer" on his personal blog, Beijing or Bust, named after his film. Due to Chinese government internet blocking of his blog hosting service Blogger.com, he also has a mirror version of the site on MSN Spaces. In early February Hao began contributing as Northast Asia Editor to Global Voices Online, an international bloggers' network hosted at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Writing under the pen name Tian Yi, Hao's contributions aimed to bring citizens' online voices from China and the rest of North East Asia to readers in the English-speaking world.

Why didn't we speak out about his detention earlier?

Hao’s family and friends in China have deflected questions about his detention for the past month, as authorities in contact with people close to Hao have urged them not to publicize the case. There had been hope that his detention was only for a short period of time, in which case publicity would not have been helpful.

For more information...

Hao's family and friends inside China do not want to be interviewed directly by the media at this time, and thus we will not provide journalists with their contact information. We have set up a website dedicated to Hao's release at: www.freehaowu.org. It will be updated regularly with new information that emerges about Hao's situation.

All further queries can be e-mailed to: freehaowu@gmail.com.

Chinese anti-corruption site shut down

Remember that Chinese anti-corruption website Nick Kristof gushed about in a recent NYT Op-ed?  Well, it has now been shut down, reports Chinese blogger EastSouthWestNorth. 

(Found on Paul Frankenstein's daily World Blogger Roundup over at Global Voices... a good example of why those roundups are worth checking out and why the links are worth clicking through.)

Arrests in Bahrain

Seems like we have a theme for the week... Islamic governments going after bloggers who believe their religion should be compatible with democracy and free speech.

Watch Chan'ad Bahraini for updates on first one, now THREE people jailed in Bahrain. Babbling Bahrania is also on the case with the latest about the plight of blogger Ali Abdulemam, plus Mohammed Almosawi and Hussain Yousif, all three of them moderators of Bahrainonline.  According to Babbling Bahrania, "This is an arabic site which you can access to get a flavour of the kind of debates. It has tended to be highly critical of the government, although the moderators have always maintained a certain standard of debate which is not abusive or slanderous."

Bahrania asks: "if you knew u were going into custody, what would you pack in your suitcase?"

UPDATE: Bahrania's latest post shows the frustration of people who are sick and tired of the Bahraini Big Brother:

Our boys, Ali, Mohammed and Hussain will be forced to face a difficult choice: close BahrainOnline.org, wipe out the database or face SEVERE consequences. Will they stand by their principles and rights to free speech and forsake their future? This is the choice they are facing right now in that interrogation room.

Ali was the visionary of this project, Mohammed was the brains, Hussain was the voice. They're identities were never secret. Which one will break under pressure? I'm sure they now realise this is no joke and the government is DEAD serious on closing this site down. How long can it go on clamping down on its people - banning foreign participants to conferences, arresting people collecting signatures for a petition, threatening the closure of political societies, arresting a human rights activist, living on royal whims, blocking websites and now this.

Will Bahraini Big Brother do the right thing?  Bahrania hopes international attention will make that more likely: "What else can we do? How do we know this isnt just some blogger frenzy and that the authorities are hearing this??"

Malaysian police question thinking man

"Thinking Allowed, Thinking Aloud."

It's great to see Malaysian Blogger Jeff Ooi blogging up a storm, uncowed, after he was taken in for questioning by police on Monday morning local time.  For details on what happened see Ethan Zuckerman's post at the Global Voices blog, Curt Hopkins' post at the Committee to Protect Bloggers, and an expression of concern by Reporters Without Borders. 

As RWB points out, "The Malaysian authorities have previously acted against online publications." One webmaster and journalist for an edgy online news site went to jail for 2 years in 2001.

Jeff knocked everybody's socks off here at Harvard last December when he spoke at the Internet & Society conference and inspired us all at the Global Voices workshop (see a report about that conference here).

We all hope that if Malaysian authorities know that a lot of people around the world are big Jeff Ooi fans, they'll be less likely to take their attempts at harrassment and intimidation any further.

Brought to you by Nepali bloggers

  

On Wednesday, the blog Radio Free Nepal posted these pictures. Three editors of the newspaper Bimarsha weekly were summoned for questioning by police after publishing blank editorial pages in the paper: their way of protesting government censorship in the wake of Nepal's recent coup.  Nepali journalists face arrest for defying censorship, but they are doing what they can to get the real news out by blogging through Radio Free Nepal.  The blog points us to a Human Rights Watch report on atrocities being committed by both government troops and Maoist insurgents. According to the International Crisis Group, Nepal faces an "urgent human rights crisis in Nepal that requires international action." Keep an eye on the RFN blog for firsthand reports from Nepali journalists, blogging anonymously in order to avoid being thrown in jail.

The Online Journalism Review has an article about RFN today.

Iranian blogger convicted

The Committee to Protect Bloggers points to this Reuters story on the conviction of 28-year old Iranian blogger, Arash Sigarchi. His crime? "Insulting" Iran's leaders.

The BBC has a report about the dangers of blogging in Iran, plus a story about today's action day.

Free Mojtaba & Arash Day

 
Today is Free Mojtaba and Arash Day in honor of the two Iranian bloggers currently incarcerated by the Iranian government.

Read about Arash and Mojtaba.

Here is what you can do. With additional contact information.

Banners are available at various locations on the Committee to Protect Bloggers blog.

We have already had a tremendous response, including encouragement and thanks from bloggers in Iran.

Let's make a difference today. Freedom of speech is not a partisan issue, not an issue of culture or ethnicity, it is a bloggers' issue and a human issue.

February 22: Free Mojtaba & Arash Day

The Committee to Protect Bloggers has declared February 22nd as Free Mojtaba and Arash Day. The commitee asks that bloggers dedicate their blog to the release of Iranian bloggers Motjaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi.

Reporters Without Borders points out the irony that Iran, which is now "undergoing the Middle East's biggest-ever crackdown on online free expression," is also a participant in this week's U.N. preparatory meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will be held in Tunis later this year.  RWB rightly asks: "How can Iranian officials parade at a UN summit on the Internet at the same time as they are jailing bloggers?"  Good question.

Time for the blogosphere to start caring about global internet governance before thuggish governments try to take it over under U.N. cover. 

New blog: Radio Free Nepal

A new blog, Radio Free Nepal, has been set up as a place where Nepalese journalists and bloggers can post information anonymously... because they could go to jail if the government finds out who they are.  The blog's header explains:

King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on independent news broadcasts and has threatened to punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal publishing reports critical of "the spirit of the royal proclamation" is subject to punishment and/or imprisonment, contributors to this blog will publish their reports from Nepal anonymously.

The most recent entries are mainly linking to the latest news. But scroll down a bit and you'll see some first-hand accounts of what happened earlier this month.  Into the Global Voices Nepal wiki page it goes.

Signs of dissent in North Korea

A video showing the first documented act of protest inside North Korea has emerged.  Chalk up several new points against state-sponsored thuggery.

Maybe now that they're getting so many Chinese mobile phones in North Korea they can start mobcasting.  Serious. I'm not joking.