Harry Wu
Harry Wu (born 1937; Chinese: 吳弘達, Wu Hongda) is an activist for human rights in the People's Republic of China. Now a resident and citizen of the United States, Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps, for which he popularized the term laogai. In 1996 the Columbia Human Rights Law Review awarded Wu its second Award for Leadership in Human Rights. [1]
Biography
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. (December 2008) |
Wu was born in Shanghai. He came from a wealthy family; his father was a banker, and his mother was descended from landlords. He recalls his childhood as being one of "peace and pleasure" but that these fortunes changed after the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949: "During my teen-age years, my father lost all his properties. We had money problems. The government took over all the property in the country. We even had to sell my piano[2]."
Wu studied at the Geology Institute in Beijing, where he was first arrested in 1956 for criticizing the Communist Party during the brief period of liberalization in China known as the Hundred Flowers Campaign. He has also claimed that he protested the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. In 1960 he was sent to the laogai ("reform through labor"), the Chinese labor camp system, as a "counterrevolutionary rightist."[3] He was imprisoned for 19 years in 12 different camps[3] mining coal, building roads, clearing land, and planting and harvesting crops. According to his own accounts, he was beaten, tortured and nearly starved to death, and witnessed the deaths of many other prisoners from brutality, starvation, and suicide.[citation needed]
Released in 1979 in the liberalization which followed the death of Mao Zedong, Wu left China and went to the United States, where he became a visiting professor. There he began writing about his experiences in China. In 1992 he resigned his academic post and became a human rights activist. He established the Laogai Research Foundation, a non-profit research and public education organization which was financed by the AFL-CIO and in fact was based there in the early years. The work of the foundation is recognized as a leading source of information on China's labor camps, and was instrumental in proving that organs of executed criminals were used for organ transplants.[4].
In 1995 Wu, by then a U.S. citizen, was arrested as he tried to enter China with valid, legal documentation. He was held by the Chinese government for 66 days before he was convicted in a show trial for "stealing state secrets." He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was instead immediately deported from China. He attributes his release to an international campaign launched on his behalf.[5]
He was awarded the Courage of Conscience Award by the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts, on September 14, 1995 for his extraordinary sacrifices and commitment to exposing human rights violations in his motherland China.[6]
In November 2008, Wu opened the Laogai Museum in Washington, D.C., calling it the first ever United States museum to directly address human rights in China.[5][7][8]
Recognition
Wu received the Freedom Award from the Hungarian Freedom Fighters' Federation in 1991. In 1994 he received the first Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. In 1996, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom from the Dutch World War II Resistance Foundation. He also received honorary degrees from St. Louis University and the American University of Paris in 1996.
Wu is currently the Executive Director of the Laogai Research Foundation and the China Information Center. He is also a member of the International Council of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation.
Other
In 2007, Wu recently criticized the selection of a Chinese sculptor, Lei Yixin, as the lead sculptor for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial based on the fact that Mr. Lei had also carved statues celebrating Mao Zedong. [9]
Wu also wrote a response to Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower. Wu briefly recounts his story while imprisoned, and responds to the question posed at the end of the book.
Books
- Laogai: The Chinese Gulag (1991), the first full account of the Chinese labor camp system.
- Bitter Winds (1994), a memoir of his time in the camps.
- Troublemaker (1996), an account of Wu's clandestine trips to China and his detention in 1995.
- New Ghosts, Old Ghosts, Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China (1999), by James Seymour and Richard Anderson
References
- ^ Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev., 1995 27: 429
- ^ "Harry Wu on the real China", World Net Daily, April 5, 2001
- ^ a b "Press Release: Laogai Museum Now Open to the Public". Laogai Research Foundation. 13 November 2008. Retrieved 12 December 2008.
- ^ Glen McGregor, Inside China's Crematorium, The Ottawa Citizen, November 24, 2007
- ^ a b "Press Release: Laogai Museum Now Open to the Public". Laogai Research Foundation. 13 November 2008. Retrieved 12 December 2008.
[Wu] was released after 66 days in detention due to international outcry and intense pressure from many U.S. political figures.
Cite error: The named reference "press release" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List
- ^ Agence France-Presse (10 November 2008). "US museum displays China's 'laogai'". Taipei Times. Retrieved 12 December 2008.
- ^ Buffard, Anne-Laure (14 November 2008). "D.C. museum 1st in U.S. to look at Beijing's prison system". The Washington Times. Retrieved 12 December 2008.
- ^ Lei Yixin - Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial - New York Times