Hao Wu’s Sister’s Blog is NOT Banned in China

Update: I’ve been told this story was in error – see the comment below. Apparently she is not blocked, but was a victim of a server breakdown. But Hao Wu is still in jail. And she’s still being ignored.

Not so surprising. Her description of her ordeal is nothing short of heartbreaking.

April 19, a friend called to tell me she could not view my blog. In fact, even now, I am unable to normally log onto my blog and hotmail account.

At midnight on both April 18 and 19, I sent sms messages to a woman, hoping to meet with her before leaving Beijing on the 19th, but she did not reply my messages. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I gave her a phone call during the daytime of the 19th. She told me she had not received any of my messages.

Lately, I have not received any replies to the emails I send out. Some “frequently mailedâ€? accounts have stopped communicating. The phone is acting funny too, sometimes it will suddenly stop ringing; sometimes I pick up and no one answers on the other end. I have even been cut-off mid-conversation and heard high-pitched noises. Yet, I am still able to make sense of these disturbances. In the past few days, however, there occurred some really absurd events. I am shocked and confused, I really can’t think of other words to describe the way I feel. Dear God! Please don’t destroy the last dregs of respect that I have for my adversaries….

April 18, my parents have been calling everywhere, trying to find my brother. I hid in the apartment, listening to the phone ring, lacking the courage to answer it. In the end, my mother interrogated me on my mobile phone about whether something has happened to my little brother. I could only mumble some incoherent excuse to her. According to our plans, my eldest Aunt should have called my parents on the 19th to casually tell them that Haozi is under police investigation. At the moment, I am back in Shanghai, focused on my parent’s situation. Will they accept what my eldest Aunt tells them? Please God, let their health be able to sustain this shock.

Nina also asks, “Is it worth it to go to all this trouble for such a vulnerable and insignificant person as me?” Of course it’s worth it, when the perpetrators are as insecure and frightened as the thugs who are blocking your blog and holding your brother in prison. They’re simply doing what they always do when they feel threatened: cracking skulls, arresting innocents and silencing the voices of those asking questions.

What a nightmare. And what a rare and wonderful thing it is that Nina is documenting her torment and giving the world a real-time glimpse into the cruel machinations of a modern-day police state. Please don’t stop. We are all reading you, even if you are banned in China.

The Discussion: 8 Comments

Hi Richard. There was no block on Nina’s site – but there was an outage of all MSN Spaces on the China Telecom ISP (which incidently coinciided with Hu’s visit to the Microsoft campus). Nina’s site and all others are again available.

April 21, 2006 @ 8:30 pm | Comment

Thanks for the corection – will amend the post.

April 21, 2006 @ 8:35 pm | Comment

I haven’t been able to get on freehaowu.org all day though…

April 21, 2006 @ 9:52 pm | Comment

And do you want to know the really creepy, scary, totally bizarre thing about this? The prominent “Free Hao Wu” box that has been on top of this blog for weeks is suddenly GONE – and I didn’t touch the template. Are there ghosts at work? How the hell can that happen?? And you’re right, the Free Hao Wu blog appears to be inaccessible.

April 21, 2006 @ 10:40 pm | Comment

The Free Hao Wu link is off of Rebecca MacKinnon’s blog as well. Very, very strange. Must be because of the Ethan Zuckerman site being down…I guess.

April 21, 2006 @ 10:42 pm | Comment

Since this began I’ve only been able to view http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/haowu but even that’s been [ ] too now it seems.

April 21, 2006 @ 10:50 pm | Comment

I’m going to assume that it’s a technical problem, for now. The free Hao Wu badge is gone from my site too, but if ethanzuckerman is down, that’s where it’s being hosted, so no surprise there.

April 22, 2006 @ 1:08 am | Comment

freehaowu is back up.

April 22, 2006 @ 1:51 am | Comment

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