Her Husband’s Voice : Activist Wife of American Imprisoned in China Attends L.A. Rally, Denies That He Confessed

Having lived in Taiwan since her youth, Ching Lee Wu says she was largely oblivious to the plight of political prisoners in her native China. That ended five years ago when she met Harry Wu, her future husband.

Today, she spends her time as a high-profile activist on behalf of Chinese prisoners--who now include her husband, China’s most internationally recognized inmate.

Ching Lee Wu was in Los Angeles on Saturday to address a Westwood rally on behalf of her husband, who was detained by Chinese authorities while entering his homeland June 19. He has since been charged with stealing state secrets--a capital offense in China--along with other crimes, triggering worldwide outrage and further straining already tense relations between Washington and Beijing.

Rallies in support of Wu were also held Saturday in cities across Asia, Australia and the United States.

Harry Wu has dedicated himself to exposing the abuses of what he calls China’s “dirty secret”--the laogai , forced labor camps in that nation’s sprawling prison system. He spent 19 years in forced labor camps as a “counterrevolutionary.” Released in 1979, he is now a U.S. citizen and runs his Laogai Research Foundation out of a small office in Milpitas, north of San Jose, assisted by his wife.

Wu told a crowd of about 100 in Los Angeles that her husband was well aware that he faced great danger in returning to his homeland. But he went anyway. Why?

“Because he wants to talk to future generations and insure that this kind of horror is not repeated again,” she said.

Since her husband’s arrest, Wu has been successful in her efforts to mobilize support for his release. Congress and the California Legislature have passed measures calling for Wu’s freedom. She has gone to Washington and met with top U.S. officials. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were among the groups calling for Wu’s release Saturday.

Through it all, she acknowledges not having slept much; the fatigue is evident in her face.

“I am really touched so many people have come to express support,” said Wu, who donned one of the pink T-shirts, ubiquitous at the rally, declaring in both English and Mandarin: “Let Go Harry Wu.”

She last saw her husband in June, when she accompanied him to San Francisco International Airport for his trip to China. His appearance in a videotape released this week by Chinese authorities shocked her. He looked exhausted and had lost at least 10 pounds in custody.

“He must be mentally exhausted,” said Wu, who, like others, voiced concerns about the health of her husband, now 58. She disputed Beijing’s much-publicized contention that her spouse had confessed on the tape to falsifying information in two documentaries he helped prepare for the British Broadcasting Corp. on China’s penal system. Possible errors in the broadcasts do not undercut his assertions of a vast forced labor enterprise in China and a thriving business in the sale of human organs from executed prisoners, she said.

“My husband will never confess to lies,” declared Wu, 50. “He is too strong.”

Ching Lee Wu was a government secretary in Taiwan when she met her future husband in January, 1990. Her family was one of many who fled to the island during the mass exodus from the mainland after the Communists took control in 1949. A geologist by training, Harry Wu was in Taipei doing research on the laogai --which he wants to see exposed internationally like the notorious gulag of the former Soviet Union. His passion about the subject was an awakening for her. The two were married in early 1991. That fall, they moved to the United States, where the scholarly Wu continued his research, making several trips to China, some clandestinely.

“I’m so proud of Harry, and I want to tell him how much I respect him,” she said. The arrest of her husband, she said, “was an attack on the truth.”