In LA

I was planning to collect and post my thoughts on the disappearance of Chinese filmmaker and blogger Hao Wu, but I’m happy to report that he has reappeared before my slow thought processes could finish. Hao Wu, a Chinese-born U.S. permanent resident, was working on a documentary film about an underground Christian Church in China when he was “detained” by police on February 22, 2006. Hao was an active blogger and journalist, and it is unknown whether he was detained for these activities or for filmmaking. He was never charged with a crime and was not allowed to meet with an attorney. His case received a lot of attention the world over, and is documented at the Free Hao Wu website. On my recent trip to Minnesota, I was very happy to see his face on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Thankfully, Hao Wu has been released after almost five months in prison and is now resting with his family in Beijing. I am glad, and wish them all well. He sounds like a cool guy, and I hope to see his film one day.

There are still many people who have been detained or imprisoned in China for exercising what many consider to be a fundamental human right, freedom of speech. I hope that the Chinese legal system will further develop to offer Chinese people these and other rights they are supposed to be granted in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, such as the freedom of speech granted them in article 35, freedom of religious belief (article 36), freedom from unlawful detention (article 37), etc etc.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 2:23 pm and is filed under China, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.