I just wanted to offer my thanks to everyone who has blogged about Hao Wu’s detention or put a badge on their site. Technorati sees roughly a hundred posts about Hao Wu in the past two days; looking through my server logs, I see over two hundred bloggers who’ve added one of the four badges we provided on the site… or remixed them.
Some of the posts are from people who know Hao Wu – Yan from Glutter was on a BBC World Service panel with Hao about a week before his arrest. She offers a partial transcript of the BBC panel, as well as this thought:
I am totally in shock at the moment, so very upset. I thought he was very intelligent, and articulate. I even mused on the blog, that he might not be saying everything he believed in because he might not want the authorities after him… I think he was being careful already, he never said he believed in free speech, he didn’t say anything that was anti the communist government, but he did say something about the project he was working on. Which goes to show, under a totalitarian regime, you never know what one says may interest the authorities.
Please help him. Put up the banner. Write it on the blog. Just let people know.
Lisa at Paper Tiger briefly worked with Hao Wu when he was an aspirating filmmaker in the US. She offers these thoughts on his detention:
It’s hard for me to know what to say, except that Hao is a great person, with talent and heart and vision, and that for the Chinese government to detain him is yet another sign of how the CCP still squanders the talent of its own people, how it is destroying China’s future in the name of “social harmony,” which more than anything else seems to be a figleaf of ideological cover for the exercise of raw power and untrammeled authority. Hao never challenged the CCP. The only way in which his work could be considered “political” is that he does not censor his own observations, that he thinks freely and isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.
Support for Hao Wu is coming from all over the world:
Martin Varsavsky in Madrid: Cuando Arrestan un bloguero en China
Melisa De Leon in Panama: Free Hao Wu!
Peking Duck from Taipei: It’s an outrage: Beijing or Bust Blogger Held by Chinese “Security” Bureau
and dozens of others, including Afromusing, BoingBoing, Blogcritics, Instapundit, and Black Looks.
The story is also being picked up – gradually – by the mainstream media, including Radio Free Asia and Washington Monthly. And Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists and Committee to Protect Bloggers have helped spread the word, demanding Hao Wu’s immediate release.
What will the attention do? We don’t know. The hope is that, the more people are talking about Hao Wu’s unjustified arrest and detention, the better chance that Chinese government will feel compelled to release him, or at least formally charge him. But it’s hard to know whether outside pressure will be felt in China, or whether this pressure will lead to our friend’s release.
Thanks to everyone for your help so far and for more help in the future.
I really hope he gets out of this problem soon!
M
I went to church in China and nobody arrested me, what gives? Could it be that I, as a guest to their country, show the curtisey of not breaking their laws?
http://chruchinchina.blogspot.com/
Let’s for the moment put aside the argument weither China’s laws are right or wrong according to our senstivity. The fact remains their laws exist according to their sensitivity, and they have effects in their land.
Rule of law dictates laws are to be observed – else it’s anarchy. Unjust law should be changed within the existing reality and current states – else pay the price of civil disobidience (or revolution.)
I’m sure by now you are bored of these obvious principles of our proud western tradition, which many neglects while indicting China.
Let’s talk about weither the law that’s involved is just.
The reason churches go underground IMHO isn’t because they are “unauthorized†Catholics or Protestants. The Church I attended in Zhengzhou was a Protestant church.
My understanding of the reason chruches go “underground†is because they refuse to observe China’s law protecting children’s right to religious freedom that bars adults from indoctrinating children until the age of 16 (with flexibility).
Reailty is there ain’t enough GongAn to kick down the doors and arrest every parent that reads the Bible to their kids, or grandmothers who BaiBai the Kitchen God with little MeiMei.
But when pastors encouraged by foreign missionaries to break China’s laws and hold bible school, advertise to the whole village, invite the policeman’s kid to come every sunday for the brainswashing session – what do you think happens?
Bobby Fletcher, are u an idiot? it isnt an issue of what the church(es) are doing in china, this is about poor Hao being detained for speaking his mind, he was making a documentary which would bring light onto a subject that the government would not like. Now, i dont hav a clear understanding on this subject, but i do know Hao, and i do know he is a nice guy, and for the government to hold him without charge is wrong. Stop confusing the subjects, this is about Hao being held without being charged, not whether some groups of churches are right or wrong…
Bobby, the point of our campaign to free Hao Wu is not to make the argument that Christianity is prohibited or driven underground in China. Frankly, that’s irrelavent for the purposes of our campaign – we don’t know whether Hao has been detained because of his filmmaking activities (which focused on prohibited churches), his work with the BBC or NPR, or with Global Voices. We’re agitating for his release because he has been detained without charge. Suggesting that foreign missionaries somehow are connected to the situation I’m writing about here suggests that you haven’t read the details of Hao’s arrest and situation – I would urge you to go to freehaowu.org and read about the situation.
whatever the so called charge is, dont anticipate anything legitimate. Just like all so called laws that betray human rights (yes human rights depite CCP wanting ot give the Chinese people less than prisoner or animal rights human rights are necesarry freedoms like freedom of thought…)
Theyve taken him away cause he doesnt kowtow to the regime. Its as simple as that and its the same deal with the christians and the people who Hao was interested in. Thats the issue. China needs to overthrow those pigs and have the freedom to think what they think. Truth is good. CCP is lies.
Bobby Fletcher is CCP hired blogger. He’s trying to do harm..
Let him realize, that CCP is not China. Let him read: http://ninecommentaries.com/
He’s brainwashed and desperately need help.
I’m not trying to ridicule him – I’m sincere – just help him realize the truth (zhen xiang), if you want to address him..
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