Hao Wu’s sister, Wu Na, has begun blogging about her brother’s detention. It’s clear how difficult this is for her, reading a translation of her first post – she’s a quiet, private person who’s been forced to become an advocate by the government’s detention of her brother:
My own writing has always been weak, and composition gave me even more of a headache. But now I believe that true feelings will leap onto the keyboard, as I type out the characters of my family and friends who miss Wu Hao. These feelings do not require eloquence or adornment. They just need to be faithfully recorded. I hope it can fill in for the “I love you, brother,” that is usually so hard for me to say.
Wu Na tells us that, on her most recent visit to the authorities in Beijing, she was informed that Hao Wu had committed a crime… but the authorities would not tell her what he had been charged with. He’s now been detained for five weeks without being formally charged.
A photo of Hao Wu from his sister’s photo gallery on her new blog
We’re waiting for permission from Wu Na to start letter-writing and lobbying campaigns on Hao Wu’s behalf. It’s not hard to understand how difficult and scary this situation has been for her, and we’re trying to ensure that she’s authorized everything we’re trying to do to advocate for Hao’s release.
At the same time, we’re very aware that there’s a narrow window during which advocacy within the US may have extra impact – the time leading up Hu Jintao’s visit to the US on April 20th. We very much hope that articles like Geoffrey Fowler’s piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal will help put pressure on President Bush to raise the issue of Hao Wu’s detention with Hu Jintao… or that attention to Hao’s detention will inspire the Chinese government to release him before the summit.
If you blog and haven’t posted about Hao’s detention yet, please consider doing so. The only tool we have at our disposal is our ability to call attention to Hao’s situation, telling the press, legislators, other bloggers. Please check out the stories we’ve posted on the Free Hao Wu site, put a badge on your page, and help us get people talking about our friend’s illegal and unjust detention.
Hi Ethan,
Sorry, but I couldn’t find your eml address to send you a private mail, so I guess I will do it here.
First up, way back in November, whilst in Tunis for WSIS, I sent you a reply that I would be available for the blogger’s dinner, and even gave my mobile number, but you never replied:-(
You might be interested in knowing that I have moved all the entries I wrote for WSIS onto another blog: http://twelvedaysintunis.blogspot.com
On a second and more serious point, I have noticed a serious dearth of coverage of news from Accra. I for one blog quite regularly, and whilst not all the entries are always “interesting”, mine is a light-hearted entry into life in Accra, and I suspect that my blog, for whatever reason, is not being covered. At least it hasn’t been so for the past two weeks or so, when I have written about GPRS in Ghana, the eclipse and whatnot.
I am beginning to feel very uneasy about the growing dominance of Nigerian blogs, and by extension Nigerian BLOG reviewers who appear to provide scant coverage of Ghanaian blogs.
To that end, Ihave debated and debated and arrived at the conclusion that I would like to offer my services of reviewing GHANAIAN blogs–whether that includes foreigners writing in Ghana or not, because this imbalance, in my view, is VERY unhealthy.
Thanks for your time.
Emmanuel –
I’m very sorry I wasn’t able to connect with you in Tunis. My time in Tunis got very complicated due to the problems we had with our workshop and with Tunisian law enforcement, as you may have read on this blog. As it turned out, I wasn’t even in the country for the blogger dinner, which ended up organized by some of our Tunisian friends – I’m sorry that the message I passed to them – asking to connect with you – didn’t make it to you.
As for coverage of Ghana – oddly enough, I’d linked to one of your eclipse posts before reading this comment. This blog – despite the title – isn’t just about Accra. It’s about my interests, which are wide-ranging and cover much of the world, with a special interest in Africa. I don’t pretend to be running an Accra-focused news service – I’m running a personal blog that includes topics I’m concerned about… like my friend who’s been detained by the police in China, which is the post you’re commenting on.
If you’re referring to Global Voices rather than to this site, a) I’m not the editor, either of the site as a whole or of Africa and b) we get an unbelievable amount of mail complaining that one country or another is undercovered. If you’re interested in offering your help to our Africa editor in making sure that Ghana gets covered correctly, I suspect you’ll find her very willing to accept your input. But I don’t think any undercoverage of Ghana is anything other than accidental.
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Hi Ethan,
Thank you very much for your explanation–and for defusing tensions;-)
thank you for your continuous good work!!
have a good weekend!
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