Profile of Harry Wu

Harry Wu has dedicated himself to exposing the truth about China’s Laogai, the largest forced labor camp system in the world today. In 1960 he was sent to the Laogai as a “counter-revolutionary rightist” and spent the next 19 years imprisoned in 12 different forced labor camps.

Wu was released in 1979, and left China and came to the United States in 1985 as a visiting professor of geology at the University of California at Berkeley. Later, he began writing about his experiences in the Laogai. Wu chose to end his academic work and become a human rights activist dedicated to exposing the truth about the Laogai. In 1992, he established the Laogai Research Foundation, a non-profit research and public education organization.

Wu has testified before various United States Congressional committees, as well as the British, German and Australian Parliaments, the European Parliament and the United Nations. He has received several Freedom and Human Rights Awards and honorary degrees from St. Louis University and the American University in Paris.

In the summer of 1995, Wu was arrested by the Chinese government as he tried to enter China with valid, legal documentation. He was sentenced to 15 years, but was immediately expelled as a result of an extensive international campaign launched on his behalf.

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