Bloggers Help Free Chinese Filmmaker

We appeal to the Chinese government for Hao Wu’s immediate release!




When Chinese filmmaker Hao Wu did not show up on Feb. 22 2006 to meet a friend at the gym in Beijing, the Internet community jumped into action. A picture of Wu on a shocking red background and bright yellow text that said “Free Hao Wu” soon popped up on hundreds of blogs in China as well as around the world.

Within weeks, about 1,000 websites carried the picture of Wu, which linked to a website called FreeHaoWu.com where information about the case was constantly updated. It was a virtual version of going block by block to post fliers for a missing person.

Wu, a Chinese citizen with U.S. permanent residency, was finally released on July 11 after nearly five months in detention. His case is a testament to the power of the blogging community to generate information and gather support. With an estimated 60 million bloggers in China, blogs have become a powerful tool of social support for causes ranging from feminism to freedom of speech.

Technology has been a way to thwart the government’s efforts in controlling the public. In 1989, Tiananmen Square protesters used fax machines to reach out to the international press. Last year, 12,000 workers mobilized using cell phone text messages to go on strike against their company. The blogosphere’s high interconnectedness made Wu’s case very visible in the blogging community, and by extension, on the Internet....more