At Seeing Red in China, Yaxue Cao translates Ge Xun’s account of his recent detention and deportation (Part 2 here). Having travelled to Beijing for his mother’s funeral, Ge was held for 21 hours and violently interrogated about his involvement in various human rights causes, including online campaigning for Chen Guangcheng [zh]:
Interrogator: “What is it all about? You are the initiator, correct? Who are the members? How much money have you spent on it? Who gave you the money?”
Me: “I set it up to collect everything about Chen Guangcheng in Chinese or other languages. The purpose is to get more people to know about him, raise awareness of the plight of him and his family, and call for his freedom. It needs no money, nor did anyone give me money. It’s built on a free blogging platform. Members are netizens whom I don’t personally know …. We don’t originate content. I am not a leader, and there is no need for us to contact each other.”
Interrogator: “That’s not possible! How can a website belong to no organization, no leader, not spending money? Impossible!”
“Believe it or not, nobody leads,” I said, thinking, Where do these people come from? Do you have to have a leader to call for freedom?
Reading the whole account is strongly recommended: Part 1, Part 2
