Research status: Media baseline completed; original 1995 court, diplomatic and congressional records, Laogai Research Foundation governance records and durable copies remain open.
Harry Wu, also known as Hongda Harry Wu, was a Chinese-born former political prisoner and human-rights researcher who spent many years documenting China’s laogai prison-labor system. After moving to the United States, he founded the Laogai Research Foundation in 1992. In 1995 he was detained in China, convicted and sentenced to fifteen years, and then expelled to the United States shortly after sentencing. His later work included books, public advocacy and the Laogai Museum. Criminal allegations in state records remain attributed to their sources rather than independently adopted as fact.
Selected source timeline
- 1995: Amnesty arrest, charge and sentencing updates.
- 1995: Washington Post contemporaneous reporting.
- 2002/2010/2016: RFA Mandarin coverage.
- 2016: RFA English obituary.
Evidence note: organization self-history is used for its own chronology, not as independent corroboration of broader human-rights claims.
Free China 