Harry Wu, a former political prisoner who dedicated his later life to exposing abuses in China’s brutal prison labor camp system, has died. He was 79.
Wu died yesterday (Macau time) while on vacation in Honduras, Ann Noonan, administrator with Wu’s Laogai Human Rights Organization, told AP. The cause of death wasn’t immediately known, and Wu’s son Harrison and former wife China Lee were traveling to the Central American nation to bring home Wu’s remains.
Wu was born into a prosperous family in Shanghai that saw most of its property confiscated following the civil war in 1949. He studied geology at university but fell afoul of the authorities for his criticism of the Soviet Union, China’s then-ally, and was sentenced in 1960 at age 23 to “reform through labor.”
The Buzz | China human rights campaigner Harry Wu dies
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