Harry Wu, founder of Laogai Research Foundation, has joined the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB). See CUSIB announcement
BBG Watch has also learned that the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting, a newly-formed NGO with the goal of strengthening the delivery of uncensored news from the United States to countries without free media, will announce Thursday the names of several new members. According to our sources, they include several other distinguished human rights campaigners, journalists, and public servants. Some were active supporters of the successful effort to save Voice of America radio and TV programs to China from the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ attempt to end them on October 1.
According to the announcement on the CUSIB website, www.cusib.org, Harry Wu knows first-hand the atrocious conditions of the Laogai in China. In 1960, he was imprisoned at the age of 23 for criticizing the Communist Party, and subsequently spent 19 years toiling in the factories, mines, and fields of the Laogai. He was released in 1979, and came to the US in 1985 with just $40 in his pocket.
Since that time, Harry Wu has traveled back to his native country multiple times to further investigate Laogai camps and continue his call for human rights in China.
In 1992 he founded the Laogai Research Foundation (LRF), www.laogai.org, to gather information on and raise public awareness of the Chinese Laogai.