How does it feel when your brother gets detained without charge for over a month and the police won't tell you why, or where he is?

Nina Wu, sister of the detained filmmaker and blogger Hao Wu, continues to document her ordeal on her blog, Missing Haozi. (Haozi is Hao's family nickname.)  Yesterday, in a post about visiting the police  station (translated into English here), she wrote:

Outside, I have the support of a husband, friends and lawyers. Inside, my brother cannot read or receive any information from outside. Isn’t he even more alone and helpless? I must remain firm. I can’t break down before my brother does. Just as I believe that my brother has a generous and loving heart, I will always believe that my brother is innocent. I only hope that his honest personality will not bring him too much hardship and suffering.

We will continue to provide full English translations of her blog posts on the Free Hao Wu website.

Drop Nina a line in her comments section and let her know how much we admire her for being so strong. Zeng Jinyan, the wife of the recently released AIDS activist Hu Jia, has been blogging for the past month about her husband's detention, and now the circumstances of his release. How does a Chinese family's life change after one member returns from detention?  Today she described how she and her husband are being followed everywhere they go by men with cameras.  She also left an encouraging comment on Nina's blog [my translation, corrections welcome]:

Nina, today on my blog I wrote this, in hopes that everybody will come here and support you. Take care of yourself, keep yourself safe, conserve your energy for the long haul.

"What a huge social stage. I've been part of the audience, then I got on stage, now I'm audience and on stage at the same time. After Hu Jia came home, I heard that some other women are suffering similar pain to my own. When I see these two links, http://ethanzuckerman.com/haowu/ (English) http://spaces.msn.com/wuhaofamily/ (Chinese) its clear that the people writing them are going through great unhappiness. Through the words I re-lived the pain, re-lived the cruelty. It's like being betrayed all over again. There's nothing I can do, I can only give Nina a message of support each day. The fact that our blogs have not been shut down is something worth celebrating, but it's unclear if this is a step toward freedom or not."

Can blogs stop human rights violations? Jinyan is right to be skeptical. But will many more Chinese become aware of what's happening to their own countrymen through blogs like Nina's and Jinyan's? It seems likely.  Victims and their families now have a direct means to speak out, in their own way. They have a vehicle through which they can receive sympathy from people inside China and people around the world. They can connect with other victims. They "own" and have control over their own stories in a way that was never the case before. In the past, the only way other Chinese people knew about detentions like these were via Western media reports, which sometimes filtered back into China. Such reports are often discounted as exaggerations or Western anti-China propaganda. Many Chinese feel they have good reason to take human rights stories coming out of the West with a grain of salt. But now victimized Chinese can speak directly to their fellow countrymen - without their voices making the double pass through the filter of Western perception and political agendas. This is so much more powerful, and so much more difficult to discount.

Comments

[lihlii]

It's merely the common situation of the CCP's rule in China. This is the "law" which Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Cisco, Nortel etc. claimed that they should respect and obey.

[mahathir_fan]

Lihlii,
You are wrong that such things are happening in China because of CCP. I can quote examples from US history that shows similar behavior - arrest without charges, no consultation with lawyers etc. etc. In fact even more evil than what CCP is doing. It happened in the 1920s during the Red Scare. Many many thousands were arrested this way in the US at that time. Contrast to CPC which is only arresting a handful. And US at that time was a democracy so we cannot blame CCP for this, although in my book, China is a democracy as well.

see: http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture16.html

"On January 2, 1920, the Red Scare reached its climax in the United States. On this day, simultaneously in thirty three American cities, Justice Department agents arrested 3,000 "communists, anarchists, and aliens." In actuality, most of these persons had broken no law and were, in fact, American citizens. The government violated their constitutional rights by detaining them without bail and by preventing their contact with lawyers or family members. Government agents also apprehended other Americans for "guilt by association." This series of arrests brought the total number to around 7,000. Of these 7,000, the government deported or imprisoned only 556. "

[dean berry]

I’LL BET MY COPS ARE MORE CHICKENSHIT THAN YOURS ARE. WELLS & ELKO, NEVADA: NOBODY MORE CHICKENSHIT.
http://chickenshitwellsandelko.blogspot.com/

[nonewshere]

mahathir_fan: I'll have to notice you that due to ineffective network propaganda you did last month, you have to come back to our agency's headquarter located here in Bejing to get your paycheck.